


As Soon As Possible

by turn_turn_turn



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Bad Puns, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Kissing, M/M, RomCom AU, Slow Burn, When Harry Met Sally AU, and an incident involving some Not At All Casual Sex and Communication Issues, lots of banter, no I swear they will kiss eventually, some hijinks involving a stuffed dog, well Eventual Kissing, well more like Begrudging Acquaintances to Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-22
Packaged: 2018-12-17 03:20:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 47,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11842893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/turn_turn_turn/pseuds/turn_turn_turn
Summary: Can two idiots stop bickering long enough to confess their true feelings for one another? Steve and Bucky will attempt to answer this question in just twelve short years! A journey filled with road trips, arguments, other relationships, emotionally convoluted hookups, borderline-salacious and pastrami-sandwich-adjacent amateur theater, and heaps of completely unnecessary, totally mutual pining!An updated re-imagining of a romcom classic, starring Steve Rogers, a bird-boned, hopeless romantic with a stubborn streak, and Bucky Barnes, a laid-back Lothario (dubious on both counts) with a heart of gold and more bad Star Wars puns than Mark Hamill himself!Also features supporting roles by Natasha 'We All Wish We Were That Cool' Romanoff, Samuel 'Has His Shit Together, Unlike All of You Dweebs' Wilson, Clint 'Are You Going to Finish That Slice' Barton, and many more!Now showing at an archive near you.





	1. Opening Credits

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lucidnancyboy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucidnancyboy/gifts).



> Alright, here it is folks - the ‘When Harry Met Sally’ AU I asked myself for, and boy howdy did I deliver, i.e. here is 30,000+ words of extremely self-indulgent rom(heavy-on -the)com ridiculousness.  
> That being said, if you are looking for a verbatim retelling of the classic film you will most likely be disappointed: the general story arc is the same (Meet Cute 1: Post-collegiate Road Trip --> Meet Cute 2: Public Transportation Interlude --> Meet Cute 3: Resultant Friendship --> Romance, Eventual) and I have retained the themes of several jokes (A miscommunication about underwear! Sex Noises and a side of fries! I Love You But Not Your Taste In Home Décor! etc.) for continuity of lolz, but everything else is new, if Predictable. 
> 
> I will also be including some song recommendations with each chapter (hello, Predictable), because I am... me. Also, what would a sappy romcom be without an equally sappy soundtrack??
> 
> This fic is complete, but the posting schedule will be spread out:  
> 8/18 - Prologue and Chapter 1  
> 8/19 - Chapter 2  
> 8/20 - Chapter 3  
> 8/21 - Chapter 4 and Epilogue  
> The chapters will also follow the general structure of the film, in that the final section (chapters 3 and 4) will be where the bulk of the story, and word count, will occur. 
> 
> *** Please note that this fic will feature Bucky/Nat and Steve/Brock, but endgame will be Bucky/Steve. All in-fic breakups will be handled with care. 
> 
> This fic is accompanied by (Absolutely Amaze-balls) art by the (Terrifically Talented) [lucidnancyboy](https://lucidnancyboy.tumblr.com)

 

**Page 1**  

**Happily Ever After and Chill: Tales of Modern Love**  

An Interview Series  

Interviews conducted and transcribed by Peter Parker  

 

Interview 13 – S. and B.  

Audio Transcription from 3/8/2017 

(Interviewer's contributions presented in  **bold** ) 

 

**Okay,** **let's just jump right in – how did you two meet?**  

**S:**  We met in college.  

**B:** Um, technically it was three days after college graduation, so that isn't exactly accurate.   

**S:** Well, I suppose - if you want to be really nit-picky about it.  

**B:** I'm not being picky I'm just trying to be  _precise_  – this is going on the record, Stevie. We're, like, under oath. 

**S:** We are not – we're just helping Pete out with his project for class. Not a bible in sight. We can tell the story however we like.  

**B:** Well if it doesn’t have to be _true_ we should've rehearsed a bit or something. You know, some cute back and forth, maybe say a couple words in unison -  

**S:** I didn't say it doesn't have to be true, it just doesn't have to be a play by -  

**B:** You know how much I love my bits -  

**S:** It'd take a full decade to -  

**B:** Though I've got a soft – well, maybe not  _soft_ , heh– spot for yours too, if you don't mind me say -  

**S:** Oh god, don't you even start. Achild is recording us right now.  

**B:** Oh so  _now_  you're all about the record.   

**Ah, Uncle Steve, I'm a senior in college -** **not exactly a child over here. I've got, like, eight whole chest hairs.**   

**S:** Wow, I had no idea you were that close to retirement, Mr. Parker. Eight? Mazel tov. And Christ, don't you encourage him.  

**I'm only saying –**  

**S:**  And isn't 'Uncle Steve' a bit informal for an official interview? Especially after that whole spiel forbidding us from calling you Petey while the tape is -  

**B:** He also said no swearing, but I think we all know that shit ain't gunna fuckin' fly -  

**S:**  Not motherfuckin' likely.  

[throat clearing] 

**W** **e're veering off track a little bit,** **guys – I mean, gentlemen – I mean, um** **, interview** **ees. Ah** **.**  

**B:** Smooth.  

**Shut the** **fu** **– Okay, l** **et's try this again** **: h** **ow did you two meet?**  

**B:** Okay, well, do you mean how did we _meet_  or how did we get together? 'Cause the status of our relationship has changed a bit since the very beginning.  

[muffled snort] 

**S:** I'll say.  

**Fine,** **let's work backwards. I probably should have asked this first** **,** **actually – I did for all the other couples to**   **kind of** **set the stage,** **ya** **know,** **but I didn't really know** **most** **of them and I've known you guys for** **fu** **– I mean freaking -** **ever** **,** **and you're, like, the most married couple I've ever seen so -**  

**S:** Just ask the question, Pete.  

**O** **kay, okay. W** **hat is your relationship to each other?**  

**B:** Well generally it's -  

[shifting sounds of someone making an obscene hand-gesture] [background shuffling]  

**B:** Oof! Not the ribs, Stevie, Jesus -   

**S:** Buck, if you could retain your decorum for five whole minutes I'd be truly grateful.  

**B:**  How grateful? Grateful enough to do that thing I asked you to do last night with the strawberry flavored -  

**S:** Can't even last five seconds, can you? 

**B:** Babydoll, we both know I can last all ni- Ouch!  

[giggling] 

**S:**  Fuckin' Christ, Buck, you're awful.  

**B:** Alright, fine – I'm overflowing with decorum now. It's oozing right out of me. Decorum is just  _dripping_  right down my -  

[heavy sigh] 

**S** **:**  You drive me batshit fucking crazy. You always fuckin' have - that's how we got started, Pete. We hated each other at first.  

**B:**  Nah - I didn't hate you, you hated me. I was ready to get all mushy about you right from the get go - made me all starry-eyed.  

**S:** That is  _so_  not true. You called me uptight.  

**B:**  I did  _not_ – you are totally mis-remembering on account of all the irrational dislike you were harboring at the time. I could also point out that only an uptight person would remember someone maybe,  _possibly_  calling them uptight on one very short occasion, like, twelve whole years ago. But I won't. 

**S:** Mhmm, I don't think I'm 'mis-remembering' a single goddamn thing – and it wasn't all that irrational, pal.  

**B:**  Whatever, Stevie – you must've liked me at least a little, even then. C'mon, admit it - how else could I have so thoroughly swept you off your feet all those years later? Very, very thoroughly, if I do say - 

**S:** I think 'swept' is a bit too active a verb for something it took you  _eleven_ _years_  to do -  

**B:**  It did not take all eleven – I had you by year five and you know it. 

**S:** Continental drift works faster than you.  

**B:** Alright, so I Pangaea-ed you off your feet, so what -  

**S:**  Buck, Pangaea  _broke up_  – that idiom is fault-ing kind of flat.  

**B:**  Ooh, nice one, babe.  

[slap of a high-five]  

**B:** And you know what I mean, punk – I got us there eventually. Mountains were made. Earthquakes. I rock your world.  

**S:** You do okay.  

**B:** I'll take it. And speed is besides the point - I got you  _now_ , don't I? 

**S:** Yeah. Yeah, Buck, you got me.  

**B:** Ditto, sweetheart.  

**You guys are** **so** **gross.**  

**S:** Those are some pretty professional interviewing skills, Petey.  

**Well it's been twenty minutes and you guys still haven't answered a single** **one of my**   **question** **s** **!** **You go from pointless bickering to gooey-eyed -** **I'm going to have to transcribe all of this,** **y** **a** **know** **,** **Professor Taylor is a real stickler for -**  

**B:**  Okay,  _fine_. Our relationship is that we're – how did you put it? - the 'most married.' That's actually true – we did it twice just to be sure. Although the second one probably doesn't count, since Sam isn't actually a ship captain, but -  

**S:** He did have the hat.  

**B:**  That's true! He had the hat. That has to be at least symbolically binding. It had shiny do-dads on it and every -  

**S:** And we met on a road trip.  

**B:**  Yeah, yeah that's right – we met on a road trip. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Opening credits song rec: Manhattan - Cat Power 
> 
> I'm also on [tumblr](http://tern-tern-tern.tumblr.com) if you guys are into that sort of thing. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! <3


	2. Part 1 - Spring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meet Cute #1: Post-Collegiate Road Trip

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The [FANTASTIC ART I CANNOT STOP LOOKING AT](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11843232) below is brought to you by Jessie Lucid  
> Check them out on [tumblr](https://lucidnancyboy.tumblr.com) [ao3](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucidnancyboy) and [instagram](https://www.instagram.com/jessielucidart)
> 
> <3

**June, 2005 –** **Bucktown** **, Chicago**  

Steve drives slowly down North Honore Street, leaning forward over the steering wheel to peer at the front doors of the buildings lining the block, looking for the correct number. He pulls the Ferrari into a free spot close to what he assumes is the correct apartment and scans the stoop and sidewalk for the guy he's supposed to be picking up – James-something-something, though apparently he goes by a nickname. Barney? Bucky? Steve's never met him.   

At least, he's pretty sure he hasn't. Steve wouldn't normally have agreed to this sort of arrangement – thirteen plus hours of unavoidable contact with an almost-complete stranger sounds like his personal idea of hell, actually – but he hadn't really been relishing the prospect of a solo road trip, with nothing to entertain him aside from his own historically abysmal radio-singalong skills.   

Though, as far as Steve's concerned, even thirteen hours of butchering the lyrics to 'Hollaback Girl' would be preferable to flying; Steve would rather crawl from Chicago to New York on his knees than get on a plane ever again. A shared car ride with a stranger, even an unbearably awkward shared car ride with a stranger, can't possibly be worse than  _that_. Steve's pretty confident in that assumption.   

So when he'd run into Rose at the department's graduation party and she'd mentioned that her boyfriend was looking to hitch a ride to New York, asking whether Steve knew anyone who was making the trip, Steve had offered a seat in his car without a second thought. The opportunity to shoot the shit and possibly share drive time with James-whats-his-face is just icing on Steve's 'at least I'm not on an inexplicably-airborne metal death-trap' cake, really.   

Steve checks his watch and double checks the nearest house numbers, spotting two young boys on the steps across the street in the process, both of them staring at the Ferrari with looks of awe that are equal parts gratifying and distressing to Steve. He scans his memory of his and Rose's conversation, hoping he'd thought to mention that the car he'd be picking James up in doesn't belong to  _him_. Steve likes Rose - she'd been his studio partner for the past two years – and he hates the idea that she'll think this ostentatious hunk of junk is something Steve actually _bought._    

Then again, it is a pretty sick ride.   

Steve has just flipped his cell phone open to give Rose a call when he catches her emerging from the front door of the house across the street. A tall guy with shaggy brown hair and a raglan t-shirt trails behind her, their hands linked, an enormous duffle bag thrown over one of the guy's shoulders.   

Steve waves the two of them over, pops the trunk for James' bag, then busies himself with playing Snake on his phone as the couple makes their goodbyes.   

As far as goodbyes go, this one strikes Steve as excessively physical. Not that Steve is staring, or anything. James – Steve assumes this must be Rose's boyfriend, what with all the groping – bends Rose backward over the hood of the car, his tongue buried deep like he's administering a very primitive and unhygienic strep test.   

Steve doesn't want to be the kind of person that judges the activities of consenting adults, but like,  _ew_.   

He wants to say something to make them stop - briefly entertains the idea of laying on the horn - but considers that a comment like 'Excuse me, but I'm pretty sure dry-humping isn't good for the paint job' would set the wrong tone for an all-night drive in close quarters.   

"I'm going to miss you," Steve hears Rose say.   

"Ditto, sugarlips," James replies. "I love you."  

"You too, you awful boy," Rose responds, the affection in her tone bordering on gooey.   

Steve reconsiders the horn.   

The couple shares one last, messy – audibly messy – kiss, then parts. James opens the passenger-side door and drops into the seat with a thump. Rose closes the door and leans on the windowsill, smiling at Steve.   

"Steve, this is Bucky. Bucky, this is Steve. You two play nice, you hear me?" She shoots Steve a wink.   

"Only way I know how to play, babydoll," James –  _Bucky_ – croons, leaning in for yet another kiss.   

Rose laughs, reaching in to playfully shove Bucky's face away. "I know that isn't true, you nutbag. Have fun you guys. It was awesome being your studio partner, Steve! Keep in touch, okay?"   

"Will do, Rose," Steve tells her, smiling and feeling yet another pang of early-onset college nostalgia. He's going to miss Rose.   

"See you later, lughead," Rose adds, addressing Bucky. She leans in for another quick peck and then backs away from the car, walking backwards and waving.   

Bucky leans out of the window. "Turn around!" he shouts. "I need to give a parting leer to my favorite ass-et!"   

Rose laughs and turns around, does a little shimmy, then throws a middle finger over her shoulder and crosses the street.   

Bucky chuckles, turning back toward Steve. Then he whistles, running a reverent hand over the upholstery. "Man, nice ride you got here."  

"Thanks," Steve says, turning the key in the ignition. The car purrs back to life around them. "Though it isn't actually mine - I don't know if Rose told you."  

"Oh yeah? Whaddya do, steal it?"  

"I haven't ruled that out yet, but no – my friend Tony needed somebody to drive it back to New York for him, I volunteered."  

"Tony? Tony Stark? Why'd he needyou to take it? If it's the guy I know, it's not like he can't afford to hire a professional carrier."  

Steve shrugs. "Yeah, same guy - and that's what I said when he brought up the idea. He said he trusts me more than he would a stranger. But I think it's a combination of charity, since he knows I could stand to save the money on travel – not like New York is gunna be cheap – and him not being able to resist the opportunity to hold one over me for the rest of my life if anything happens to the car while I'm driving it."   

Bucky snorts. "Now those are some conflicting interests."    

Steve smirks back at him. "Yeah, Tony is truly a riddle – and by 'riddle' at best I mean 'dirty limerick with a surprise ending.'"  

Bucky sniggers. "I mean that goatee is a mystery. I met him once at a party – insisted on calling me 'Fucky' all night long. Real witty dude."   

"Indeed. I wouldn’t normally take him up on the misplaced rich-guy pity, or do anything to allow for his possible satisfaction at my expense, but I really hate to fly, and the bus sucks." Steve shrugs, and then shoots Bucky a grin. "Plus I think Tony and I both underestimated just how much I wanted a chance to drive this fuckin' thing." He revs the engine, the car vibrating beneath them.   

Bucky smiles back. "It is a damn sexy ride – I mean, they might not be panties but my boxer-briefs definitely dropped a little when I saw it."   

Steve chuckles. "I know, right - I don't normally subscribe to any hyper-masculine bullshit, but I swear to god my dick grew an inch the second I sat down," he jokes.   

Bucky lets out a laugh like a bark and grins. His teeth are very white. "In which direction?"  

Steve snorts. "Mostly east."   

Bucky laughs again, his nose crinkling with it. Steve smiles at him, pleased – it isn't often he finds someone that shares his same brand of nonsense-humor.  

"Alright, here we go," Steve says, pulling out into the street. "We've got a bunch of CDs, the radio, and an absolute shit-ton of snacks – chips are right behind your headrest, if you're hungry."   

"Sa-weeeeeeet," Bucky sing-songs. He turns to rummage through the heap of packets Steve had carefully assembled. "Dude,  _Bugels_? You rock."   

Steve grins, holding out a hand for Bucky to spill some chips into. He's starting to think this road trip might be fun after all.  

\---  

They only make it about twenty minutes before Steve has changed his mind.   

"Duuuuude, what the hell is this?" Bucky cringes, pointing at the stereo system.   

"What?" Steve asks, perplexed. "It's the new  _Iron & Wine,_ and it's great. What's wrong with it?"  

"There's nothing  _wrong_ with it – it's just totally, completely not what we should be listening to in this car. Sappy folk music has no business being played inside a Ferrari – it's like, blasphemous or something. This car is built for classic rock – we should be listening to like,  _Journey_."   

Steve bristles. "I don't know why we would change the perfectly good music we are listening to right now, but whatever."   

Bucky grimaces again. "It really isn't that good."  

"I can't say I care too much about your opinion," Steve huffs.   

"Who gets this defensive over  _Iron & Wine_?" Bucky asks. "Do you know him, or something? Are  _you_  him? And like, the beard is just a stage disguise to confuse the paparazzi and keep the fame from tainting your personal life? I wonder if that's a thing - 'stage-beard'. It's a pretty good idea, actually – I'm totally stealing it if I ever make it big. I'd do something really well manicured, though – beard wax, a little comb, the whole nine yards."   

Bucky barely pauses for breath during this diatribe. Steve just eyes him askance, vague perplexity turning to fully-fledged affront as he watches Bucky reach forward and eject the CD, plugging his own iPod into the tape deck.   

"Hey!" Steve tries, only to be drowned out as 'Little Red Corvette' starts playing at full volume.   

"What?" Bucky yells over the music. "It's thematically appropriate!"   

Steve watches as Bucky starts to dance, arms flung out as he air-drums and shimming his hips as enthusiastically as the seatbelt will allow. A giggle threatens to break through Steve's irritation, but he tamps it down. He reaches forward to turn the volume dial down to a non-blaring level.   

"Sorry! Too loud, huh?" Bucky shouts. "Prince really deserves top volume, though. I always forget how dirty that song is – the line about the used condoms? Oy." Bucky pops a chip into his mouth, speaking though his chewing. "I'm not sure I like the tone he's taking in this one though – who is he to tell her how fast to go? Maybe she doesn't  _want_  a love that's gunna last, ya know? You think Prince would be above that sort of stigmatization. Whoops -"   

Bucky drops a chip between the seat and the center console. He reaches under the seat, fishes around for a minute with his tongue between his teeth, locates the chip, pulls it out, eyes it critically for a second or two, and then pops it into his mouth with a satisfied sigh.    

"Then again, I'm not sure how I'd feel if I found out the girl I was dating was just going around with her pockets full of used rubbers – that's just unsanitary," Bucky adds, shaking his head.  

Steve thinks this guy might be the strangest person he's ever met.   

\----  

Bucky isn't really sure what to think about this Steve dude.   

Scratch that, Bucky knows  _exactly_  what he thinks about Steve - he thinks Steve is just about the most adorable human he's ever met.   

What he's unsure of is how Steve feels about  _him_. Steve's a pissy little shit, it seems, and something about Bucky is definitely rubbing him the wrong way.   

He started to get a little twitchy after Bucky switched off his sad banjo music, and the subsequent application of kickass eighties power-ballads doesn’t appear to be helping, for some reason.  

It's alright, though; Bucky's always been very good at winning people over, and he doesn't mind a challenge. A challenge with gorgeous eyes, a pouty mouth, and passion for junk food that rivals his own – well, Bucky minds that even less.   

The guy has already pounded two bags of pizza-flavored Cheetos on his  _own_. Bucky's a little infatuated.   

"So, Steve, what'd you study?" Bucky asks, leaning back in his seat so he can watch Steve's profile as he talks.   

"Studio Art, mostly," Steve replies. "Minor in Sociology. You?"  

"Economics, minor in Mathematics. I initially wanted to be an accountant, but -"  

Steve snorts. "Who wants to be an accountant?"  

Bucky wants to flick his ear, but he doesn't think they're quite there yet. " _Me_ , punk. I like numbers." Bucky shrugs. "So anyway, I'm thinking about going for an MBA somewhere in New York, then maybe pursue a job with a federal agency like the NIH or the NSF. I'm kind of a science nut, but I've always known that I don't have the creative brain for it - so I figure I'll try to be one of the guys that gets the money where it needs to go, so that the scientists who  _do_  have the creativity it takes can actually carry out the research that's going to change the world."   

"Mhmm," Steve hums distractedly, peering into the side mirror as he shifts lanes. "I was gunna make fun of you for actually  _wanting_  to work for the government in any capacity, 'cause I think you've gotta be either insane or a republican – though, I mean, pot-a-to, po-ta-to, really - to volunteer for that sort of thing. But, anyway, that actually sounds like a reasonable and not entirely repulsive goal."  

"I appreciate your condescending and begrudging support of my interests," Bucky responds dryly.   

"You're welcome," Steve replies, and Bucky can see the corners of his mouth twitch. "So what sort of science would you have wanted to do yourself, if you had the 'creative brain' or whatever?"  

"Something to do with astrophysics, probably. Space is my  _jam_. Heh – space jam." Bucky giggles. "But anyway, enough about me – I want to hear more about the artsy stuff. What's your medium?"  

Bucky's eyes land on Steve's capable-looking hands, wrapped around the steering wheel at the very proper ten-and-two position. Bucky wants to guess sculpting, make some quip about figuring Steve is good with his hands, but he stops himself, interested to hear Steve's answer.   

"Paint – mostly oils."  

"Yeah? What sort of stuff do you paint?"  

Steve pauses for a second, shooting Bucky a very blue, unreadable look. "Well, my thesis was an abstracted landscape study – a series on historical battlefields as they look now, centuries or decades later, as an analysis of how memory and context shape the way we experience physical space." Steve shrugs. "Pretty pretentious, I know – I'm sure I'll feel really cringe-y about it in a few years."  

"I was actually going to say that it sounds fascinating," Bucky assures him. "I wish I had gotten to see that. So landscapes, huh?"  

"Yeah – but I also get a lot of commission work for portraiture. That's how I've been putting myself through school." Steve gestures to the car around them. "That's actually how I met Tony."   

"Oh yeah?"  

"Yeah – back in freshman year. Paid me to do a full-size rendition of him on the wall of his dorm room." Steve smirks. "With a few choice details."  

"Judging by the look on your face I'm guessing those choice details were ostentatious, ridiculous, or both?"  

"Tony?" Steve feigns shock. "Nah, he went for something totally subdued and tasteful." His smirk blooms into a wide grin. "He had me do him up like a knight – gold armor, sword held aloft, the whole shebang – and of course he wanted to be holding a severed head in one hand. The kicker was that he had me give said head the likeness of a certain Physics professor that he didn't get along with. Then somebody recognized the face, reported it to the dean, yadda yadda - it became this whole thing."   

"Geeze," Bucky says. "And I thought keeping a forbidden hotplate for late-night grilled cheeses was the height of dorm-living rebellion. Did you get in trouble?"  

"Nah, Tony did his best to keep me out of it. Even produced a contract signed with my name to prove that I'd been commissioned and hadn't come up with the idea of my own volition - of course he'd written the contract ten minutes before his meeting with the dean and had forged my signature, but still, it was a nice gesture and it got me off the hook. He's actually not a bad guy, Tony."   

"I mean he is letting us eat cheese-powdered snacks in his hundred-thousand-dollar car - I'd say he's passably chill."   

Steve shoots Bucky a wink that makes his spine tingle. "Well he doesn't explicitly  _know_ about the snacks, but how are we supposed to go on a road trip without Doritos?"  

"Truth. Speaking of road trip essentials – any chance you've got some Slim Jims kicking around in this thing?"  

"What am I, an amateur?" Steve scoffs. "Glove compartment."  

"Score." Bucky reaches forward to fish a couple of packets out of the glovebox, unwrapping the end of one before handing it to Steve.   

"Uh, thanks," Steve says, taking it. He darts Bucky another one of those interesting looks.   

Bucky stares at Steve's handsome face as he chews, considering. "Hey, did we ever meet before this?" he asks. "You look so familiar."   

"Ah, no – I don't think so, anyway," Steve replies, a little bit of color rising in his cheeks - and damn if that blush isn't the cutest thing Bucky's ever seen.   

Bucky  _has_  to figure out if Steve's single. It would probably also be helpful to find out if Steve dates guys, period. Bucky just needs to find the appropriate way to ask.   

Unfortunately, at this moment Bucky's brain isn't up to supplying anything more eloquent than 'Yo Steve, would you be cool with me putting my face in the general vicinity of your face,' so he keeps his mouth shut. Steve seems a little too shy and sophisticated for that kind of approach.   

No matter, Bucky knows how to play it subtle. He can be smooth when he wants to be.   

"Oh shit -" Bucky misses his mouth with the neck of his Mountain Dew bottle, managing to douse his crotch with a generous splash.   

Steve smirks, then lets out a tiny giggle, the sound of it lighting up Bucky's insides.   

"Better you than the car," Steve snorts.  

"Jerk."    

\---  

Steve pulls off the highway at a roadside diner a few hours later.  

Bucky follows Steve into the restaurant, the bell jingling above their heads. They find a booth and order burgers and sodas.   

The vibe is different than it had been in the car, somehow, facing each other over the table. It's harder for Steve to deny just how attractive Bucky is when he's looking straight at him, for one thing.   

Direct contact with Bucky's slate-grey eyes is actually making Steve feel pleasantly squirmy. He shoves the feeling aside and tries to focus on being annoyed by Bucky's loud chewing.   

It doesn't really work.   

Bucky breaks the quiet between them, squinting at Steve over the rim of his glass. "You really do look familiar, though – you sure you never lived in B-J?"  

"Yeah, I'm pretty positive," Steve replies.   

"Then you ever date anyone in B-J? Stay over a lot? I feel like I have a memory of seeing you in just a towel."  

Steve raises an eyebrow, willing himself not to blush. "You know that's a fairly weird thing to say to someone who's practically a stranger."  

"We've been together for the last six hours – that's longer than the time I shared with my last three hookups, combined. We split a bag of  _Doritos_. I think we're at the stage where I can start to say weird things to you."   

Steve nods. "Oh right, I forgot about the Doritos – now there's a level of intimacy rarely achieved."   

Bucky shrugs. "I mean, think about it - you lick the Cool Ranch-iness of your fingers, stick your hand back in the bag – that's like second base in snacking, at least. Plus, what I said is only weird if you've got a problem with another dude seeing you shirtless – what are you, a homophobe? A Never-Nude?"  

"Neither. And the weird part isn't that you might have seen me shirtless, it's that you  _remember_  maybe seeing me shirtless and are now telling me about it."  

"Well maybe you've got a really memorable chest, I don't know. Got any cool tattoos on it? Like maybe a tiger wearing sunglasses and drinking a mojito?"  

Steve can't help but snort. "It's a pina colada, actually. Is that really the 'coolest' tattoo you can think of off the top of your head?"  

"Well they're  _aviator_  sunglasses. And it's not off the top of my head - I've got the same one on my left butt cheek – he winks when I flex."  

Steve laughs. "Nifty. Nah, no tattoos for me – that can't be it."  

"Man, I'm just so sure I've seen you somewhere before. Did you date anyone in B-J or not?"  

Steve thinks for a second. "Well Rebecca Ciroli might have lived there, but I never stayed over her place, so that can't be it."  

Bucky leans back in his seat. "Wait, wait, wait - you so did  _not_  date Rebecca Ciroli."   

"What?" Steve frowns, his brow creasing. "Yes I did – for a few months in Junior year. It didn't work out."  

"Why not?" Bucky asks, leaning forward again in interest.   

"How is that any of your business?" Steve demands. "The usual reasons, I guess – incompatibility." He shrugs, but he can feel his cheeks heat, remembering, and has to look away from Bucky's face.  

"What sort of incompatibility?"  Bucky garbles through a mouthful of food. "Would she not go down?" He swallows with a gulp. "Would  _you_  not go down?"  

"I – She -" Steve sputters, shooting Bucky an outraged glare. "Again, how is that any of your business? And how can you just – I totally go – seriously, what is your problem?"  

"Just interested! And I'm just having a little trouble picturing you with  _Rebecca_ _Ciroli_. Maybe I do get what you mean by 'incompatibility' -"  

"What the hell do you mean by that?"  

"Well you're..." Bucky gestures vaguely at Steve with a slightly limp fry. "And she's..." He pops the fry into his mouth and shrugs.   

"What an in-depth analysis," Steve grumbles, self-consciously crossing his arms over his thin chest.   

"C'mon man, I don't mean anything by it - it's just, isn't she a bit uptight for someone like you?"  

That's - not what Steve was expecting, exactly, but he bristles in irritation, nonetheless.   

"That's – you don't even know me - maybe  _I'm_  uptight," he argues, then reflects that only a truly high-strung person would fight someone over  _not_ being labeled uptight, so he's probably right.   

"Yeah, you know, I'm sort of getting that impression." Bucky rolls his eyes. "But seriously, what happened? Did she cheat?"  

"I still don't see how it's any of your – and why would you just assume she would - she accused  _me_  of cheating, actually," Steve finishes with a huff, mentally kicking himself for giving in to the idiot's prying.   

"Ooo hoo, really?" Bucky crows, his eyebrows bouncing. "Why? Did she catch you?"   

"I said she  _accused_ me of cheating, not that I actually was."   

"So why'd she do that? She get jealous over one of your friends or something? I hate that."  

"Same." Steve sighs, deciding he might as well tell the story, if it'll shut Bucky up. "But no – if you just  _have to know_ , she found a pair of panties in my dresser, went ballistic, and then didn't believe me when I explained where they were from."  

Bucky peers at Steve in interest, grinning. "Ooooo where were they from? What, do you keep ex-girlfriends' unmentionables like souvenirs or some shit? Gotta tell you, Stevie, that's a pretty pervy -"   

Steve rolls his eyes and cuts Bucky off, "They were  _mine_."   

"Wha..." Bucky sits up straight, eyebrows meeting his hairline. "They – you." He clears his throat. "That's, ah." He clears his throat again.   

Steve feels a little twinge of pleasure in his midsection at the sight of the blush on Bucky’s cheeks, but he resists it.   

On second thought, he thinks teasing Bucky into full-on-fire-hydrant would be fun.   

Steve leans back as casually as he knows how and shrugs. “They were red. Lacy. Pretty cute actually. Too bad she didn’t just want to see me in them and leave it at that.” He pops a cold fry into his mouth, nonchalant.  

“Ahhhh….” Bucky doesn’t just clear his throat this time, he  _gulps_.   

Steve hides a grin behind his cup of Coke.   

"Well, um – so," Bucky attempts. "So are you going to let me drive after this?"  

Steve struggles not to laugh at the abrupt subject change. He shakes his head. "No."   

Bucky pouts. "Why not?"  

"I'm not sure I trust a guy with a Shaggy Roger's haircut with a motor vehicle – you notice they hardly ever let him drive the van?"  

"Fuck off. I'm growing it out." Bucky says, lifting a hand to tuck a lock of hair behind his ear. It slips right back in front of his face.  

"And by 'out' do you mean 'out of style'?"   

"You're a dick. It's going to look great - it's just at that like, awkward half-grown stage. It's in hair-puberty – this is an investment in future handsomeness, just wait and see."  

"Not sure this car ride is going to last that long, dude," Steve points out.    

"What, you're just going to drop me off and I'll never see you again? We're friends now, we could totally hang out in New York," Bucky says. "In like, two months, when I'm hitting peak-handsome."  

"I dunno about that, Buckley. I think I'll be pretty busy in two months." Steve crumples his napkin and drops it on his empty plate.   

"Fine, fine, you don't want to be friends – I can handle it." Bucky shrugs. Then he looks back up at Steve and winks. "So, if we aren't going to be _friends_..."   

"What are you getting at?" Steve asks.   

"We could... you know. _You_ know." Bucky winks again.   

"Obviously I do not know," Steve tells him, even though he starting to get the idea, given that Bucky is now pressing a knee against his. Steve's leg twitches.   

"I'm just saying – this highway is lousy with motels. We could get a room, get cozy." Bucky presses his knee harder.   

Steve's stomach drops, despite himself. " _Excuse me?_ "   

"Or you know, the bathroom's right over there, I'd be more than happy to -"  

Steve feels the heat rise into his cheeks. "What the fuck! Are you  _propositioning_ me?"  

"That's kind of the idea, yeah."  

Steve gapes at him. "What the fuck!"  

"I'm guessing that's a 'no'?"  

"I can't believe you are just - you're going out with my friend!"  

Bucky's face screws up in confusion. "Who?"  

"Rose!" Steve exclaims.   

Bucky continues to look blank. "What? I'm not going out with Rose."  

"Are you kidding? She said you were her boyfriend -"  

"I  _was_ , but -"  

"And I heard you before - you said you loved her!"   

"What's that got to do with – clearly we aren't going out, she lives in Chicago - and in case you haven’t noticed, I'm in the process of moving to New York. Why on earth would we try to maintain a relationship with that kind of distance?" Bucky asks, and has the gall to look at Steve like _he's_ the crazy one.   

"Oh, I don't know, maybe because of the aforementioned love? Or did you only say that so she'd let you stick your tongue halfway down her throat?" Steve scoffs, crossing his arms over his chest again.  

Bucky flushes. "For the record, she 'let me' do that long before I started saying I loved her. And I do love Rose – she's a great gal. We've had a lot of fun over the past two months."  

"Great gal? Forgive me if that doesn't sound like the language of someone talking about a person they profess to love."  

"Says who?" Bucky demands, indignant.   

It's Steve's turn to look confused. "What?"  

"I  _do_  love Rose – just because it's not a 'one true love forever and ever' sort of love doesn't make it invalid," Bucky continues. "And it also doesn't mean I shouldn't feel free to express the level of feeling I do have, in whatever language I choose."  

"Sounds a little cavalier, if you ask me."   

"Sounds a little like you might be calling me a slut."   

"I'm not – I'd never -" Steve crosses his arms tighter, feeling defensive. "I just think it's dangerous to be throwing around words like 'love' if you don't really feel – what if she was more invested in the relationship than you? What if you saying that was leading her on? That word should mean something."  

"She wasn't, and we were both very open and communicative about our expectations. Just because Rose is a  _woman_  doesn't automatically mean she's going to be more emotionally vulnerable -"  

"That is not at _all_ what I was -"  

"And I just told you that it meant something – just because my definition of love doesn't live up to  _your_ lofty romantic expectations doesn't have any bearing with how Rose or I should behave."  

"I just think you're being a little glib about something that carries a lot of weight to a lot of people."  

"And I think you're being a bit of a snob."  

Steve's stomach twists in irritation, but there's a hint of shame in the feeling as well. "I'm not a – I'm not saying the feelings you do have aren't legitimate," he tries to explain. "I'm just saying – if you're using the word 'love' shouldn't you have at least the  _intention_  of permanence? I know forever is a little unrealistic – but if you are in love, shouldn't you believe in it, just a little?" He feels himself blushing again.   

Bucky's face softens at little when Steve meets his eye. "That's a little quixotic, don't you think?"  

Steve's cheeks are so hot they almost sting with it. "Maybe. It's just how I feel."  

Bucky sighs. "And that's totally cool, dude. It just isn't how  _I_ feel." He leans back and tucks his arm along the back of the booth. "Rose either – not in regards to  _me_ , anyway. We did talk about it," he adds, his voice gone quiet and sincere.   

"Well, good." Steve uncrosses his arms, feeling wrong-footed and oddly vulnerable. "And you and I will just have to agree to disagree on the subject, I suppose."  

Bucky's mouth twitches. "You know, expressing a differing opinion is necessarily disagreement," he points out. "I'm not saying I don't think a love like what you're talking about exists - though I personally think it's fucking unlikely - I'm just saying it isn't something I've experienced myself. I'm not about to stop dating people who I know aren't 'the one,' or whatever. What, do you not casually date? Did you really believe Rebecca Ciroli was 'forever' for you?"  

Steve's irritation flares again; he’s pretty confident that’s he’s being made fun of, at this point. "Of course I – no I didn't. But I didn't also didn't  _tell her_  I loved her."  

"Because you didn't - and that's fine." Bucky shrugs. "But I do love Rose, and Tom, and Eric, and Elise, and a few other of my recent relationships – just not f _orever,_ and that's fine too. Different strokes. I can't help it if I've got a lot of love to give." Bucky rallies, winking at Steve yet again, and now Steve  _knows_  he’s being made fun of.  

Steve rolls his eyes. "Mhmm, you've definitely got a lot of  _something,_ " he mutters.   

"Speaking of – and now that we've established that I am thoroughly available - are you sure you don't want a blowjob? I already checked that the bathroom door locks."  

Steve splutters, feeling himself go red again. "God, you are so annoying."  

"Don't feel like you would need to reciprocate, or anything," Bucky assures him, offhand. "Though I wouldn't say no to a strawberry milkshake, after, if you are feeling gentlemanly."  

Steve just stares at him.   

"Still a no, huh? I'd be more than happy to just do a little necking, if that's something you are -"  

"Ugh, come the fuck on, let's get back in the car," Steve grumbles, dropping a twenty on the table and rising to his feet. "We've already wasted enough time off the road."  

Bucky shrugs, standing as well. "I'd say it's your loss, but we both know you're the real prize here." And there's wink number  _four_.   

Steve has to force himself not to squirm. "Stop that."  

"What?"  

"Being... charming."   

"I'm afraid I can't – I've been told it's congenital."  

"Please do not make that into a pun -"   

"I've also been told it's _effective_ – how's it working for you? Feeling any tingles?"  

Steve thinks he might dislocate his eyeballs, hanging out with this fuck. "Yeah, my whole body's going numb under the weight of your massive ego – I'm surprised it hasn’t suffocated half the restaurant by now."  

Bucky grins. "I like you."  

Steve's stomach gives a little flip. "Tough shit."   

Bucky tilts his head to the side. "I've never understood that expression."  

Steve turns toward the door, Bucky trailing behind. "Right now it means 'get in the fucking car, you obnoxious dickbag.'"   

"Specific," Bucky murmurs. "Okay, okay. I'm coming. Which is what  _you_  could be saying, right now, if we'd -"  

"Stop."   

"I'm only pointing out that it could be a very enjoyable way to pass the time – you know what they say, a dick in the mouth is worth two in the -"   

"For fucks sake. I take it back - you aren't even a little charming."  

"I'm only yanking your chain, Stevie. Since you won't let me yank your -"   

"I'm begging you to stop."   

Bucky sighs dramatically. "Not exactly the kind of begging I was hoping to inspire."  

"Jesus Christ."  

\---  

By the time they're half way through Pennsylvania, Bucky figures his crush on Steve is a lost cause.   

The guy is a tough nut to crack. He's also a bit of an asshole, to boot.   

He's gotten to the point that Bucky wants to be as obnoxious as possible, just to spite him – because, well, Bucky's a bit of an asshole himself.   

Plus, he can see Steve fight back his own amusement at times, and it makes Bucky want to keep poking him until he caves and laughs, or punches him, or sticks his hand down Bucky's pants, or do whatever else it is that he is so clearly bottling up.   

Bucky does doubt it's the hand-down-the-jeans option, at this point. Despite the occasional blush, Bucky isn't getting any positive feedback to his overtures.   

On second thought, going for the straightforward bathroom-blowjob offer might not have been the most well-advised route - but what can he say, Bucky's an all cards on the table sort of guy.   

It's too bad Steve is a hopeless romantic, Bucky thinks. They really could've had some fun.   

Around three AM it starts to downpour, sheets of water thrumming across the windshield and obscuring the dark road ahead.   

Steve leans far over the steering wheel, his glasses reflecting the soft blue glow of the dashboard lights.   

"Maybe we should pull over, ride out the storm," he murmurs.    

"Yeah, that’s probably a good idea," Bucky agrees. "Too bad this thing doesn't have a back seat, or else we could really ride out the storm," he adds, throwing in a few hip-thrusts to reinforce his point.   

Steve sighs and then yawns. "Is absolutely everything that comes outta your mouth a childish innuendo? I bet you were one of those kids who insisted on drawing dicks on everything you could reach – am I right?"  

"Man, I'm just trying to find out if you've got a sense of humor underneath all that white-knight armor. You could crack a smile once in a while, ya know – I think that chiseled jawline of yours could handle it."   

Steve throws him a dirty look. He flicks on the blinker and slows, pulling into a rest stop just past the sign for Stroudsburg.  

Bucky shrugs. "You just seem a little buttoned-up, that's all."   

Steve rolls his eyes, pulling the car into a parking spot. "For the last time, Barnes, you ain't gettin' to unbutton me."    

"Ha! See, puns are fun."   

"Whatever you say, Bucko. Now if you could not say anything,  _anything at all_ , for a few hours, that'd be swell – I'm going to try to take a nap."  

"Okay, honeybear. Sweet dreams," Bucky sing songs.   

"Fuck off," Steve mumbles, leaning his head back against the headrest and closing his eyes.   

Bucky makes himself comfortable, reclining his seat as far as it will go and balling up his sweatshirt to make a pillow. He sighs, shifting his hips and hearing the leather creak beneath him.   

The rain drums steadily against the convertible roof, a lulling, wonderful sound.   

"This is very romantic, you know," he says, not opening his eyes. "I've seen movies like this."   

"Mhmm, yeah, I'm swooning," Steve responds, deadpan.   

"It could be pretty  _sexy_ , too, if we -"  

"You are literally the worst person in the world."   

"Awe, Stevie, are you trying to sweet talk me? Finally."  

"Shut the fuck up."  

Bucky drifts off, grinning.   

\---  

Bucky wakes up to the muffled sound of birdsong. He's intensely uncomfortable, every part of his body stiff and cold except for his left side which has gone numb under the pressure of a soft, warm weight.   

Bucky groans and the soft weight shifts, making a sleepy sound that causes Bucky's eyes to spring open.   

He blinks down for several seconds, unregistering, before he recognizes the shape slumped against his side as Steve; his head tucked against Bucky's arm and his soft, blond hair tickling Bucky's nose every time he inhales. Steve makes another sleepy noise, deep in his throat, and Bucky's heart constricts painfully.   

If possible, Bucky goes even stiffer, trying to stall even his breathing in an attempt to avoid waking the boney body against him. This makes his neck to crick painfully, however, and he twitches, causing Steve to blink awake with a sigh.  

Steve stares up at Bucky, his eyes a depthless, agonizing blue in the morning light, and the moment seems to crystalize around them. Bucky hears his heartbeat in his ears, fast and stuttering.   

Then Steve pulls back abruptly and the tension breaks.   

Bucky smiles at him, feeling strangely unsettled. "Mornin' sweetcheeks," he yawns, stretching his creaky limbs as far as the small space will allow.   

"Ugh," Steve responds, both hands coming up to massage his neck, eyes squeezed shut in pain.   

"Not a morning person, huh?" Bucky whispers.   

"Not really, no." Steve grimaces. He turns the key in the ignition and the car rumbles to life, the radio blaring. Steve lets out a little squawk of dismay and slams his fist against the power button to quell the music.   

Bucky grins at him, charmed. "You sure you don't want me to drive the last two hours, slugger? I promise to keep the 'zoinks' to a minimum."   

"Yeah, yeah actually – that'd be great," Steve sighs.    

They trade places, Steve shooting him a quiet little smile as they pass each other in front of the car. It makes Bucky feel warm all over.   

Bucky pulls back onto the highway, going as fast as he thinks is safe, given the speed limit. He knows that Steve will still have to get the car over to Manhattan after he drops Bucky off in Brooklyn, and he doesn't want the trip to take longer than it has to.   

They are quiet for the rest of the ride, the silence between them comfortable, but charged with something that Bucky can't place. He catches Steve staring at him, a few times, but he always darts his eyes away at the last second.   

Steve drops him at a busy corner a few blocks from Bucky's friend Scott's apartment, where Bucky will be staying for a few weeks while he looks for a place of his own.   

Bucky retrieves his duffel from the trunk and walks around the driver's side, looking down at Steve through the open window.   

"So," Bucky says, but can't think of where to go from there.   

"Yeah," Steve replies, nonsensically. "I guess I'll see you around, maybe?"  

"Yeah. Yeah, see you around," Bucky responds, nodding. "Thanks again."  

"No problem, man – thanks for sharing the ride with me. It was – entertaining." Steve smirks up at him, the side of his face still creased from where it had pressed against Bucky's shirtsleeve.   

Bucky huffs a laugh and grins back at him. "I'm glad to have been of service. And hey – if you ever need any  _servicing_  in the future-"   

"Had to squeeze one last one in there, huh? And do not take that as a setup for a -" 

"Nah, too easy. Goodbye, Rogers." 

"Bye, Barnes."  

Bucky watches Steve pull the car away from the curb, but turns away before it can disappear around the next corner. He doubts he'll ever see Steve again, actually, but he tries not to let that idea bother him.   

Bucky's  _home_. Who needs some impossibly adorable, snarky-as-fuck little asshole with the most beautiful eyes Bucky's ever seen? Bucky has all of Brooklyn, almost three million people to meet and flirt with and fall in love with – maybe even forever-love with, who knows.   

Bucky smiles to himself, heaving the strap of his bag further up his shoulder and starting to walk.   

As far as Bucky's concerned, Brooklyn had better watch out. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Funfact: The convertible produced by Ferrari in 2005 was called the 'Superamerica.' Fitting, no?
> 
> Part 1 song rec: Fireflies Made Out Of Dust - Happy Jawbone Family Band
> 
> Come say hey on [tumblr](http://tern-tern-tern.tumblr.com) !
> 
> Thanks for reading! <3


	3. Part 2 - Summer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meet Cute #2: Public Transportation Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Featuring the return of Brock Rumlow as everyone's favorite soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend! Whoops, sorry Brock. *shrugs*
> 
> **Please note there is also a brief mention of past homophobia (from a very-minor character) and a resultant altercation that led to Steve getting a black eye (fisticuffs off-screen). Don't worry - Steve won.

**August 2011 - Port Authority Bus Terminal, New York**  

"Wait, c'mere."  

Steve pulls Brock's hand like a tether, towing him behind one of the building's large support pillars and backing him against the cement wall. Steve wraps a hand around Brock's neck and pulls him down into a kiss, tugging on Brock's belt with the other hand so they can rub against one another a bit, close and a little dirty.   

Brock makes a low noise in his throat, the way he always does when Steve kisses him. Steve's not sure how he's going to make it two whole weeks without hearing that sound, but he'd made a promise to Sharon and he isn't about to let her down.   

Brock shifts against him, his cheekbone suddenly pressing against the periphery of Steve's black eye, causing him to hiss in pain and draw back.   

"Oh, sorry," Brock whispers. He reaches up and traces a gentle finger over the bruising. "I wish you wouldn't go looking for fights like that."  

Steve sighs and tilts his head back, his arms hooked around Brock's broad shoulders. He pinches the collar of Brock's leather jacket between his fingers and gives it a little tug. "I don't go  _looking,_ " he insists, shrugging. "Sometimes they just show up."  

"But baby you gotta learn to just walk away." Brock shakes his head, exasperated and stern. "I mean, it's not like you're ever going to  _win_  -"  

 _That_  definitely rankles, and Steve feels himself puff up a bit, defensive, but he knows that Brock is just being protective. It's a habit of his, treating Steve like he's precious - even delicate. Steve actually loves it, when he isn't finding it incredibly annoying.   

He settles for a combination, this time.   

"It's not about winning," he explains, trying to keep his tone light. "It's about standing up for -"  

"It  _should_  be about not getting knocked on your ass in front of everyone and chance messing up your pretty little face," Brock interrupts him, cutting. Then he rubs their noses together, sweet. "You know how much I love your pretty little face."  

Steve melts, unable to help himself, leaning into Brock's touch. "You do, huh?"  

Brock pulls back slightly, a serious look on his face – well, more serious than his usual face. Brock is a pretty solemn guy, generally.   

"Yeah," Brock says, quiet and sincere. "I do, Steve – I love you."   

It's the first time Brock's said it, and Steve feels like the wind's been knocked out of him. Steve knows what a huge deal this must be for him – knows that he's the first real relationship Brock's ever had with a man.   

"Oh," Steve practically squeaks, heart swooping with pleasure. "I love you too."   

Brock smiles, pleased, and bends for another kiss.   

Steve is well on his way into making the kiss one of the Truly Serious variety when a voice over Steve's shoulder cuts through the heated moment like a dull knife.   

"Brock? Brock Rumlow?"   

Steve and Brock break apart, Brock almost shoving Steve away in his haste to separate them. Steve tries not to feel offended by this, given how romantic the past five minutes had been.  

Steve turns to face the interloper.   

The sense of instant recognition jolts down his spine like a lightning bolt and he stands stock still, staring up at the familiar face.   

For one disorienting moment the only thing Steve can remember is waking up pressed against this man's side, looking up into his eyes; the way dawn's pink glow had softened the striking cut of those cheekbones and that jaw; the feeling of a foreign heartbeat thrumming against Steve's own arm, warm and close.   

Then the rest of the memories from that night slot into place, and it's all Steve can do not to groan out loud.   

He has a shorter, expensive-looking haircut and he's wearing a fancy, fitted suit, but it's unmistakably him: Bucky  _fucking_ Barnes. What are the fuckin' chances.   

"I  _thought_  that was you," Bucky says with a wide smile, as charming as Steve remembers, addressing Brock. Then his eyes flick down briefly to land on Steve's face, and Steve steels himself against whatever, likely extremely embarrassing, greeting Bucky is about to bestow him.   

But Bucky doesn't say anything. His eyes meet Steve's passively for a few seconds before he looks back to Brock, still smiling.   

"How's it going? You still working for Callihan?" Bucky asks, pleasant, reaching out a hand to shake Brock's. He ignores Steve's presence completely.   

Steve gapes up at him.   

"Ah, yeah – yeah I am," Brock responds, hesitant, and Steve's stomach swoops with sudden anxiety.  

Brock isn't out of the closet with most of his social circles, and certainly isn't out with his colleagues. He must be worried that Bucky might -   

Remembering what he knows of Bucky's own preferences, Steve's nerves settle slightly; he doubts Bucky has a problem with the little scene he'd just walked in on, given that he'd once offered to perform a similar activity with Steve himself several – no, more than several, practically  _ad nauseam_  – times during their road trip, all those years ago.   

Does Bucky _really_ not recognize him? Even after all that?   

Steve wishes he could reach for Brock, soothe him somehow, but the hard set of Brock's shoulders makes him hold off.   

"What about you?" Brock is asking Bucky. "You still with that firm – sorry, I can't remember -"  

"The 107 Group – and no, actually – I got head hunted by The Pierce Foundation a year ago," Bucky says, a slight note of pride tinging his voice.   

Brock nods, eyes wide. "Really? That's pretty sweet, man – I've done contract work with them before. Congrats."  

"Thanks, thanks. Listen, I've gotta go get my ticket, but it was great to run into you, dude." Bucky claps Brock on the arm, grinning. His teeth are still very, very white.   

Brock nods. "Yeah, you too."   

"Take care!" Bucky shoots one last, blinding smile their way before turning on his heel and heading for the doors to the ticket counter.   

He doesn't look back at Steve once. Steve can't help but feel a little offended.   

Steve watches Bucky walking away, conscious of the deep frown he must be wearing.   

Alright, so maybe Steve can't help but feel a  _lot_ offended. 

"What?" Brock pokes at him, registering Steve's glare. "What is it?"  

"I just – I know that guy, actually. Though he obviously didn't recognize  _me_. We drove from Chicago to New York right after college." Steve turns back to Brock, trying to shake the interaction off. "Probably for the best that he didn't remember – we didn't really get along."   

"No? I don't really remember him much myself," Brock admits, reaching for Steve's hand and intertwining their fingers.   

Steve smiles up at him, squeezing against his grip. "Nah – he was pretty obnoxious, if I recall." He frowns again, remembering. "He actually asked me if I wanted to get a  _hotel room_ , even though he was going out with a friend of mine, at the time. He was really lewd about it, too."   

"Oh yeah?" Brock's face goes instantly stony and he scans the terminal as if he's hoping to spot Bucky in the crowd and shoot unnecessarily-jealous death-glares at his back.  

Steve, in his completely besotted – and also completely affronted – state, finds it adorable.   

"I don't think he was actually serious about it – he was just being annoying," Steve tells him, then attempts to distract Brock with resumed kissing. Now that the rude interruption to their romantic goodbye has thankfully left –  _Bucky fuckin' Barnes_ , of all people – Steve is eager to get back to the business at hand.   

"Mhmmm," Brock hums against his lips. Then he leans back slightly, his hands still clasped around Steve's lower back. "You didn't though, did you?" he questions.  

"What?" Steve asks, dumbly, feeling a little dazed. "Oh – no way. You couldn't have paid me enough," Steve assures him, but feels a little twinge of guilt as he remembers Bucky laughing over his plate of fries in the diner and the warm solidity of Bucky's body pressed against him, that morning in the car.   

You probably wouldn't have had to have paid Steve very  _much_ , but still. It's a moot point now, in any case.  

Steve can't believe Barnes didn't remember -   

"I do love you, you know," Brock murmurs against his lips, jarring Steve out of his annoyance.   

"Me too," Steve tells him, pulling Brock against him, his stomach gone warm and liquid.  

Who gives a shit about Bucky Barnes, anyway?   

\---  

Steve's slumped in his assigned seat on the bus, eyes closed, waiting for the last of the passengers to board and enjoying the residual glow from his last moments with Brock. Suddenly the light around him shifts, dimming, and he opens his eyes, looking up towards the source of the obstruction.  

A regrettably familiar, beaming face is staring down at him over the seat back.   

Fuckin'  _Christ_.   

"You – I know you," Bucky says, exuberant, pointing a perfunctory finger down at Steve's face. "University of Chicago, right? We went to college together."   

"Yes," Steve sighs, sitting up fully to signal that Bucky should stop leaning on Steve's headrest. Bucky doesn't get the message.   

"I knew it!" Bucky crows, still looming over him. "Somewhere else, though, too." His handsome face screws up briefly in confusion before the wide smile blooms again. "Oh, I know – did I give you a BJ at a rest stop of I-80?"   

"Wh - what," Steve splutters, completely taken aback. "No way!"  

"Yeah, yeah I remember! In the bathroom, or something. You were a real gentleman about it too – got me a strawberry milkshake after," Bucky insists, still smiling pleasantly.   

"I did not!" Steve exclaims, mortified. He catches the eye of the elderly woman seated beside him; she smirks at him from beneath her plastic rain bonnet. "I _so_ did not."   

"Seems to me that getting him a treat was the least you could have done, kiddo," she informs him in a creaky voice, shaking her head. "Young people today have no manners."   

"I – I – he _didn't -_ there was no - " Steve tries, feeling his cheeks go hot and red.   

"Would you two like to sit together?" the woman offers, standing slowly. "Sounds like you two need to catch up."   

"No!" Steve shouts, just as Bucky says, "Sure!"   

Before Steve can protest again, Bucky and the old woman have swapped places, Bucky dropping into the seat at Steve's side with a happy sigh.   

"Alright, so maybe there was no BJ – but I-80 was definitely a thing. We drove back to New York together," Bucky continues, though his tone still holds a questioning note that amps up Steve's irritation by several notches.   

"Yes,  _Bucky_ , we did," Steve grits out, crossing his arms over his chest in irritation. He figures the gesture is practically a Pavlovian response to Bucky's presence – it's something he remembers doing quite a bit on that road trip, too.   

"I knew it! You’re Steve Rogers. I mostly go by 'James' now, by the way – you know, more business appropriate," Bucky elaborates, unfazed by Steve's obvious attitude and gesturing down at his suit.  

"James?" Steve had actually forgotten that detail.   

"Yessir." Bucky – _James_  – nods. "Here I can give you some tricks to help you remember it – something like 'James and his Perfect Peach,' or 'James with the Giant Pen -"    

"Yeah, I can see how that bumps up the professionalism from 'Bucky,'" Steve interrupts, deadpan.    

"It's whatever. At work I'm 'Mr. Barnes' a lot of the time anyway, and like, every time someone says it I get all  _whoa adulthood_ , ya know? So strange."   

"I can see how maturity is a stretch for you, sure," Steve says, rolling his eyes.   

" _Ha_ _ha_  – were you this funny six years ago? You think I'd remember a sense of humor so playful and effusive," Bucky quips, rolling his eyes at _Steve,_ like he's the one being ridiculous.   

"I dunno, but you were definitely this much of a jerk six years ago – I remember perfectly. Will you please go back to your original seat? I don't think I can handle this for four hours."   

"'This' has a name, punk, and it's Bucky. And I really don't see how -"  

"Really? I thought you just told me it was 'James the Giant Pain in My Peach' -"   

"See, now that was  _actually_  funny -"   

"Now I  _actually_ don't give a flying fuck. How about you pipe down and let me read my book, 'kay? Goddamn, you're annoying," Steve huffs, pulling his paperback copy of  _Cat's Cradle_ from his backpack. 

"Whatever, dude," Bucky scoffs. "You're pretty rude, you know that? Is this still about me not liking  _Iron & Wine_?"  

Steve gapes at him, the book already forgotten in his lap. "So you  _do_  remember!"   

"It's starting to come back to me, yeah. Passing on the blowjob offer was a mistake, by the way – I'm very skilled."  

"I hope you aren't about to offer again – dunno how talented you'll be after I break your damn jaw."  

Bucky smiles, unperturbed. "Nah, tempting as those baby-blues might be, my skills are now eternally spoken for." He holds up his left hand, revealing a gold wedding band.  

Steve gapes at him again. " _You_ got married? Some person actually  _agreed_  to that?"  

"Indeed one did," Bucky assures him, a dreamy look coming over his face. "A glorious weirdo by the name of Natasha Romanoff. Man, you were so right back then about the 'one true love' stuff – it's like,  _whoa_ , ya know? I can't imagine feeling this way about anyone else. She's amazing."   

"I – you remember that too?" Steve deflates a little, taken aback by Bucky's reverent tone and the memory of their heated conversation at the diner.   

"Oh yeah, you were very passionate about the topic." Bucky nods. "A little slut-shame-y, but definitely passionate."   

"I'd never – it wasn't about  _sex_  – I just thought you were being a little frivolous with the word 'love,' that's all," Steve counters, feeling himself blush. He remembers how blasé Bucky had been about Steve’s friend - fuck, what was her name? Rebecca? Roseanne?  

Jesus, how can Steve remember almost every word of that conversation with Bucky but not -   

"Nah man, I totally get it now,” Bucky is saying. “I have seen the blinding, redheaded light. Some loves are different." He sighs, looking contented and so self-assured that Steve's heart clenches.  

It suddenly feels as if that night, that road trip, happened a lifetime ago, rather than a mere six years.  

Steve had been so convinced, back then - so unwaveringly invested in the concept of an all-consuming, unending romantic love. It’s not that Steve no longer believes in that type of connection, but the reality of it is different than he’d expected.  

His mind flashes to Brock, the look on Brock's face as he’d told Steve ‘I love you.’ Steve’s gut goes warm and tingly at the memory. Steve really does loves Brock, too. Though it is - difficult, sometimes, to imagine a future with him. Hazy. The lack of surety doesn’t change the way Steve feels now, but he can't help thinking that it definitely would have bothered his twenty-two-year-old self. 

It  _was_  a little naive, Steve figures, to have been so sold on the idea that romance involves complete and total conviction; if growing up has taught him anything, it’s that very little in life or love is guaranteed.  

Still, the idea of Bucky Barnes, of all people, having made the leap into lifelong-commitment without a second glance intrigues him. He looks over at Bucky, intensely curious.   

"So –  _married_. You guys have any kids?" Steve asks him.   

"Nah." Bucky shakes his head. "Nat never really saw herself with children, and neither did I, really." He shrugs. "What about you – any cute and fiery little Rogers' running around at home?"   

Steve tries to avoid shaking his head too emphatically. "No way – I mean, just, I don't know how people even  _do_  that," he admits.   

"What like, in a 'where do babies come from' sense? Or in a 'how do people afford it, energetically or economically' sense?"   

Steve rolls his eyes at Bucky again, but this time without any real heat. "The second one."  

"Yeah, I have no idea, man. No idea - parenting is crazy impressive. I still can't believe we are at an age that we even have to ask that - 'How many kids do you have?' Jesus. I'm still at a point where 'How many cheeseballs do you think I can fit in my mouth' is a question I've asked recently."  

Steve can’t help but snort. "Same."   

"So what about you and Brock?" Bucky asks. "How long have you two been together?"  

"About three months," Steve answers him, then clears his throat, self-conscious. "About that – Brock isn't, he isn't  _out_  at his job yet. Or anywhere, really. So if you could keep this to yourself I'd really -"   

"Oh! Oh yeah – no worries, man. I've been there." Bucky frowns. "Actually, I'm not technically out at work either – although it probably wouldn't matter too much now that I'm married to a woman. Which, you know, doesn't change the fact that I'm queer as  _fuck_ , but people have blind spots about that sort of thing - heteronormativity is stronger than the Force."   

Steve laughs and Bucky grins at him. "True."  

"So is that why you were hiding behind that column back there?" Bucky asks, and Steve can tell he's trying to tease.   

"Brock likes to be careful," Steve states, stiff. "But hey, you were the fuckin' dickbag that butted his way into what was clearly a private moment -"   

"I was just saying hello to an old acquaintance!  _Two_ old acquaintances, turns out – it was only polite. I didn't mean to cockblock you."   

"We weren't – we were just – you only mouth-blocked, if anything -"   

"In public?” Bucky gasps, all fake-dramatic. “You fiend."   

"Shut up, you know what I mean. I think you have an obsession with blow jobs, by the way."   

"Oh, totally."   

Steve laughs again. Bucky smiles at him again.   

It's... nice.  

Bucky is still extremely handsome.   

Steve resolves to find something annoying about him within the next few minutes, just to be safe.   

\---  

Bucky still can't believe he's sitting next to  _Steve Rogers_ , of all people. On a freaking bus, of all places.   

Bucky  _hates_ the bus, but he still hates flying more. He can't believe his mom up and left New York for D.C. - she knows he doesn't fly. Bucky's irrational phobias probably shouldn't be the determining factor in where his mother chooses to live, especially now that he's twenty-eight - but still, he _is_  her son.   

And she's making him take the fucking  _bus_. Not very maternal, that.   

Bucky tries to stare at Steve - who now has his nose buried in his beat-up, old book - out of the corner of his eye.  

It’s hard for Bucky to describe the feeling that had zipped through him when he’d first set eyes on Steve at the station. Something like his brain going into all-caps mode, his heart lurching against the wall of his chest. He wants to applaud himself for keeping his cool in the moment, except that in the moment ‘cool’ had amounted to just ignoring the situation was even happening, full stop.  

 _But you know what they say_ _,_  Bucky thinks, _i_ _n_ _ti_ _mes of stress, keep calm and just pretend you don’t remember a fuckin’ thing._  

It’s a strategy that usually works for Bucky - except this time he'd had to go along with the rouse, and make it seem like he didn’t really remember Steve all that well _._  The whole thing had made him feel pretty ridiculous, actually, because of course he remembers Steve Rogers. How could he forget?  

Steve’s obvious irritation at Bucky’s faux-forgetfulness is pretty funny though. All that  _blushing_.  

Steve is still as cute as ever.  

He’s also still as prickly as ever; he reminds Bucky of Nat’s cat, Fuzzy Lentil, who is definitely of the ‘every interaction must occur on my very explicit terms, or else’ variety. Bucky thinks he handles this attitude better with Lentil, though - Steve’s grouchiness still makes Bucky want to poke at him, scratches be damned.  

He glances at Steve again, who is doing a bang-up job at pretending Bucky has ceased to exist.  

Bucky can’t help himself, asking, "So what are you headed to D.C. for?"  

Steve looks up at him, then visibly shelves his annoyance and places his bookmark between his current pages – because of course he's the sort of adorable nerd that actually uses a  _bookmark_ – before answering. "Ah, I'm overseeing the installation of a mural on a building downtown – a charity my friend Sharon runs. It's an arts and theater outreach program for underprivileged, queer youth," he explains. "I do a lot of work with them, actually – they have a branch in Brooklyn, too."  

"Wow, man, that's really cool," Bucky tells him, because it really is.    

"Yeah – thanks.” Steve shrugs. “It's not entirely selfless, though – I designed the mural too, and it'll be a great addition to my portfolio. I'm trying to get in with this painting crew in New York that does these large-scale, old-school advertisements and things. It's kind of my dream job," Steve admits, rubbing the back of his neck self-consciously.   

Damn - Bucky had thought he’d maybe exaggerated Steve's handsomeness in his memory, but if anything Steve is even more eye-catching now than he was at twenty-two. Bucky sort of wants to pull out his phone and snap a picture of him, to show Nat, but is positive that Steve wouldn't take kindly to such a gesture, no matter the 'my wife appreciates my taste in men' reasoning behind it.   

He looks closely at Steve's face, noting the blooming, purple bruise around his left eye – the way it makes the startling blue of his iris even  _bluer._   

"What's with the shiner, by the way?" Bucky jerks his chin in the direction of Steve's injury. "Saving Timmy from the well?"  

"You're such a dick," Steve sighs. "No - skinhead on the subway decided to take issue with my rainbow flag pin."   

"I see." Bucky frowns, then adds, "I hope you bit him or something – drew a little blood, at least."   

Steve shrugs. "I chipped his tooth."  

"Solid."   

"So why are you going to D.C.?" Steve asks, clearly making an effort at being polite. Bucky appreciates the gesture; Steve’s a hard-ass, but he’s also a gentleman.  

"Visiting my mom for Tu B'Av. I won't be able to make it down there for Rosh Hashanah next month – huge presentation for a client – and I haven't been to see her new house yet. She got remarried a few months ago and the new hubby got relocated to D.C. in July.” Bucky smiles, thinking of Nick. “You should see this dude – most intimidating man I've ever met," he insists, thinking about the ball-withering stare Nick would no doubt fix him with if he ever heard Bucky referring to him as 'hubby.' "He's as tall as a tree, has a major thing for black leather trench coats, and has an eye-patch from - I kid you not – getting shot in the fuckin'  _eye_. He used to be a police chief in Queens for like, thirty years, and now he does something so high-profile that I don't even think my mom is allowed to know exactly what it is."   

"Wow."   

"I know. He is legitimately the coolest person alive. Scares me shitless."   

"Sounds like he would."  

"What about your parents? I don't think I asked about that, last time – they in New York?"   

"Well, they used to be.” Steve rubs at the back of his neck again. “I grew up in Brooklyn. But my dad died before I was born and my mom passed away my senior year of high school – cancer," Steve clarifies, his eyes dropping to his lap. Bucky's heart crumples for him.   

"Oh shit, man, that  _sucks_. I lost my dad when I was fifteen, so I – well I don't know  _exactly_  how that feels – but yeah, yeah that sucks. Major."   

Steve offers him a weak smile and nods. "Yeah. Major."   

"That’s funny though," Bucky continues, "that we both grew up in Brooklyn - I wonder if we ever passed each other on the street.”  

Bucky looks at Steve – at his skinny jeans with the hole in one knee, at his scuffed-up chucks, at his too-big T-shirt, at his black eye. He has a feeling he would have remembered if he'd ever seen Steve around Brooklyn, even in passing; he’s the sort of person that makes Bucky want to stop and stare.  

“Any siblings?" Bucky asks him.   

"No. You?"  

"A younger sister, Becca. She lives in Queens with her girlfriend, May. Though 'girlfriend' seems like kind of a light term - they've been together since they were  _sixteen_. First crushes, the whole shebang. It's crazy. Ten years together already."   

"That is crazy – I can't even imagine that. I barely remember the people I dated at sixteen," Steve admits, shaking his head.   

"What, you? Mr. Love is Forever?"   

Steve blushes. "Fuck off - you're the one that was pointing out how crazy it was to end up with your childhood sweetheart," he grumbles.    

"You're always so  _combative_ ," Bucky marvels, fascinated.   

So much has changed for Bucky in the last few years – his job, Nat – he's pleased to find this little consistency, even in someone he barely knows. The Implacable Steve Rogers.  

Bucky hadn't realized it was possible to be nostalgic for a person – let alone one he'd known for collectively less than twenty-four hours - but he feels as if maybe he  _missed_ Steve in those intervening years, as crazy as that sounds.  

Bucky watches Steve visibly fight against clenching his jaw and proving him right. It makes Bucky want to poke at him again. That or like, give him a noogie or a hug or something.  

"I'm not combative," Steve finally says. "You're  _annoying_. And I don't think you can say 'you always' in reference to me – we've only met once before."  

"We shared a thirteen-hour drive," Bucky points out.  

Remembering that morning in the car - Steve's warm, sleepy weight on his arm - he wants to say 'we shared a  _moment'_  too, but he isn't entirely sure that that part of it wasn't one-sided.   

"That you didn't even remember, at first." Steve rolls his eyes. "Anyway, you have to admit that one-true-love thing is rare, hopeless romantic or not."   

"Oh, definitely. And I haven't even told you the craziest part of it yet!" Bucky exclaims. "May's sister died in a car accident with her husband two years ago and May ended up with custody of her nephew, Peter. So Becca and May are like, already  _raising a kid_  and everything. I mean, Peter is already sixteen so they are kind of like his older sisters - but they are also like, his  _parents._  They're a little  _family_." Bucky smiles, fond and proud, thinking of them. "I mean, what that must have been like - twenty-four and suddenly parents. They're a super-couple, those two."   

"Geesh, I'll bet."   

"You can see it in the way they look at each other – soulmates. The sort of thing you don't really believe in until you see it in action."   

"Well what about you and – was it Natasha?" Steve asks.   

Bucky feels warmth bloom in his chest, just at the mention of her. He thinks back to the first day they met.  

Bucky had been badgered by a few of his work buddies into taking a boxing class, and when he’d arrived at the gym for the first lesson and laid eyes on the instructor - tiny, gorgeous, and with hair the deep, glowing red of an ember - it had felt like getting knocked over the head.  

Then twenty minutes later she actually  _had_  knocked him over the head. And stood on his neck for a minute. It was amazing.  

And it had continued to be amazing from that moment on; Bucky has never had the sort of connection he has with Nat with anyone. It’s mind-blowing and terrifying and so much  _fun_.  

And now they’re  _married_. Bucky hadn’t really ever given too much thought to marriage, before Nat - now he can’t imagine his life any other way.  

Funnily enough, Bucky’d actually thought of Steve on his wedding day; standing under the chuppah in his mom’s backyard, staring into Nat’s beautiful brown eyes, he’d had a sudden flashback to that conversation in the diner, Steve’s words and the conviction in his deep voice.  

 _I know forever is unrealistic - but if you are in love, shouldn’t you believe in it, just a little?_  

When it comes to Nat, Bucky does believe in forever. He really does.  

"Nat, yeah. Yeah - that’s us too,” he says, meaning it. “We’re going to be one of those old couples you see walking hand-in-hand in the park - pulling a grocery cart full of gefilte fish and Tang, arguing about bus schedules. I can just  _see_  it.”   

"Well, that’s wonderful." Steve clears his throat and turns to look out the window, at the grey highway sliding by under the bright, August sunshine. After a moment he turns back to Bucky, smiling, to add, "I’d imagine that feels a little too good to be true, doesn't it?"   

"Definitely," Bucky agrees, smiling back. "It definitely does."   

They stare at each other for a few beats, the moment stretching.  

Bucky breaks it by offering Steve one of his peanut butter pretzels. Steve accepts, only a little begrudgingly.  

They subside into a companionable sort of quiet for the remainder of the ride, both flipping through their books, occasionally bumping elbows on the shared armrest between them.   

\--- 

Steve and Bucky exchange polite goodbyes under the portico at Union Station, the heat of the day sweltering and oppressive around them, making them both eager to rush off.  

They don’t exchange phone numbers or email addresses - they’re still practically strangers, after all; it would have been weird if they’d put up a pretense of wanting to stay in touch, especially when it’s clear that there isn’t enough between them to warrant it. It would  _definitely_  have been weird. 

Definitely.  

Still, something compels Steve to watch Bucky as he heads for the line of cars waiting at the curb.  He looks on as Bucky makes a beeline for a white SUV, raising both his hands to wave as a tiny, brunette woman pops out of the driver’s side door and rushes across the pavement towards him.  

Steve’s stomach twists, watching them embrace - their heads bent together, the harsh afternoon sun gleaming off their dark hair. It’s a compelling scene, one that’s surprisingly difficult to turn away from.  

Steve does, though; he’s got to find a cab and get over to Sharon’s place, hopefully in enough time that he’ll be able to take a shower before dinner.  

He plucks the damp collar of his T-shirt away from his neck, wondering if he brought enough sunscreen and deodorant for the next two weeks. It’s going to be torture, he’s sure, sitting on scaffolding and painting in the direct sun. He’s excited about the project, anyhow - the drab, blank cement wall of the charity building is dying for a little color, and the design Steve’s come up with is actually looking great. 

 _It_ will  _be great_ , Steve thinks to himself as he hails a cab from the sidewalk. Everything about the future is looking pretty wonderful, in fact - if a little sweaty around the edges.  

Steve looks back, just once, but the white SUV has already faded into the line of traffic on Massachusetts Avenue, Bucky Barnes with it. No matter - it isn’t as if Steve is going to miss him, or anything.  

 _As if_ , Steve thinks, sliding into the blessedly air-conditioned interior of the cab and giving the driver Sharon’s address.  

By the time they hit Mount Pleasant, Steve’s almost completely forgotten about his run-in with his old acquaintance.  

Almost. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 song rec: Without - Sampha 
> 
> Thanks for reading!!!
> 
> <3


	4. Part 3 - Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meet Cute #3: Resultant Friendship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALRIGHT Y'ALL - BUCKLE UP. Get ready for some word count to the face: the remaining two chapters are hefty!  
> My apologies on the delay with this chapter - internet troubles (the wOrst) kept me from being able to post last night. 
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: copious swearing, heaps of bad jokes, a fair amount of recreational alcohol consumption, some discussion on the complicated nature of Coming Out, and one bar-fight scene that involves on-screen trading of insults (including a few off-color remarks/nicknames) and off-screen receiving of injuries (Bucky gets a black eye, Steve gets a few busted knuckles). Also be advised of just a ginormous amount of I Am Conflicted About How Much I Want Us To Suck Face vibes. It's probably a bit much, but I could not Help Myself. 
> 
> ALSO fyi this in this universe the 2016 US election just did not happen and like, Obama is still president, or something, because No. No T***p in my happy-writing-brain, no no no. Besides, I'm fairly confident that any version of Steve Rogers when faced with actual 2016/2017 events would be too consumed with the Burning, Incandescent Rage of a Thousand Angry Suns to have time for like, falling in love. So yeah, no real 2016/17 stuff in here lies. UGH.
> 
> ENJOY!

**September, 2016 - Bank of America Financial Center, Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn**

Bucky gets to the bank just before closing time.

He groans internally when he sees the line of people assembled in front of the one teller; it's been a totally shit morning of totally shit errands preceded by several months of complete and total shit, full stop, and all he wants to do is get home, take his boots off, and have Nat massage the kinks out of his neck. They might not be married anymore, but Bucky's pretty sure he's privy to a few amicably-divorced-and-still-living-together-friendly benefits.   

He reaches up to scratch at his two-day stubble; he has vague plans to grow out a beard for the winter months, but goddamn, he's not sure he'll be able to withstand the initial itchiness. A few hanks of hair slide into his eyes as he tilts his head and he sighs, irritated; the early-September weather is out in full force today, and the wind has tugged quite a few strands loose from his stubby, little ponytail. He wishes he could take a moment to redo it, but he's holding the check he's about to deposit in his right hand, and the whole only-one-arm thing makes the business of multitasking  a tad difficult.

He sighs again and trudges forward a few paces as the line shuffles itself closer to the counter, and for the first time focuses his attention on the person in front of him.  

The man in line before him is about a head shorter than Bucky himself, with a shock of golden-blonde hair and ears that stick out ever so slightly, the tops of them dusted with small, brown freckles. The shape of the man's neck is - familiar, somehow, and when he turns slightly, attention drawn towards the movement of something outside the bank's window, Bucky realizes why.  

The man turns fully around then, likely in response to the sound of Bucky's startled intake of breath, and Bucky is staring down into the well-remembered and still excessively-cute face of one Steve Rogers.  

"Oh!" Steve murmurs, blinking up at him, looking half-dazed. "It's you - Bucky, right? Bucky Barnes?"

"The one and only," Bucky agrees. "At least I hope so - god forbid some other poor schmuck be saddled with that nickname. _Steve Rogers_ \- of all the gin joints in all the world. What are _you_ doing here?"  

"Oh you know, deposits, withdrawals, maybe a heist - general bank stuff," Steve says flippantly, his eyes dropping to survey Bucky's entire frame.  

Usually attention from attractive men makes Bucky want to preen a little, but - recalling that the six years that have passed since he last saw Steve have featured Bucky's likely unflattering evolution from 'Classy, Handsome Businessman' to 'Grouchy Hobo Down One Limb and Up One Bad Jesus Haircut' - he can't help but hold himself a little stiffly under Steve's scrutiny.  

Steve's eyes finally settle on the empty, pinned up left sleeve of Bucky's canvas jacket. "Oh!" he exclaims again. "I, um - how-" Steve stutters.  

"Oh this?" Bucky shrugs his shoulders, the empty sleeve flapping a little with the movement. "Nat won it in the divorce."  

Steve blinks up at him, mouth hanging open a little.  

"Good one, huh?" Bucky winks at him. "I keep wanting to make something out of 'alimony' but it isn't really working - 'arm-imony'? It's too stiff."  

"Yeah - a little clunky," Steve responds, giggling nervously, as if he can't help himself. Then he buries his face in his hands. "Shit, I'm sorry I reacted like that – so fuckin' rude. I'm just really startled to see you here," he adds, dropping his hands. He's blushing furiously.

Bucky smiles gently, taking pity on him. "Nah, it's alright, man – it's an awkward thing to navigate, from all sides. It's been a year and I still can't figure out what to do about acquaintances I don't see all that often – do I call them up and warn them? Like a casual 'hey, just a heads up next time you see me I'll be missing a limb, say hello to the kiddos for me, okay bye' - or maybe something a little more vague, like 'I've recently lost some weight,’ but that just seems mean."  

Steve snorts. "Yeah, that would probably be a dick move." He groans and brings a hand up to his temple again, squeezing his eyes shut. "And now I've called you a dick. I'm being such a terror this morning - sorry."  

Bucky glances over at the big clock on the wall above the teller's counter. "It's four thirty in the afternoon," he points out, amused.  

Steve groans again. "It is. Shit. I was up all night last night - my crew and I were trying to finish this huge ad in Red Hook before the rain hits tonight - and then I stopped at home this morning, literally passed out at the kitchen table, and just woke up and ran to get here before close. Which is not really an excuse for horrible manners - but, well, sorry."  

Bucky looks Steve over, noting the dark circles under his eyes, the multicolored paint flecks splattered over his black jeans and hoodie. The whole look suits him, Bucky thinks.  

“Hmm, I’ll let you off the hook - you do look a little worse for wear - though _definitely_ not as worse-for-wear as me, if we’re keeping score. What do you think of the hair? Too ‘escaped convict failing to blend in’?”

Steve squints up at him. “On a scale of one to The Count of Monte Cristo I think you’re probably at the Sirius Black stage.”

“I hope you mean in human form.”

“Yeah sure, let’s go with that.”

Bucky laughs, Steve beams at him. “You’re too kind. Nat says I look like a Yeti on his way to a job interview.”

Steve snorts. “No wonder you let her keep the arm. So, uh, divorced, huh? That, uh, sucks.”

“Well - I mean yeah, it does. Also, if we’re doing full disclosure with the Last Six Years of Turmoil update, I have to tell you that I also lost my job last year.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah, definitely. No job, no wife, no arm - I’ve become the chorus of a bad country song. But you know what they say, when it rains it pours – and when it pours it keeps on pouring until it floods and you drown in your own backyard.” Bucky shrugs. “Nah, it's not so bad. I'm actually handling it pretty well – I've been called 'freakishly well adjusted' by several relatively normal people, so."

Steve snorts. “I hope one of those people is a therapist.” Then he cringes. “Fuckin’ eh, that was completely inappropriate - I swear to god I usually have a fuckin’ filter. Apparently it’s intermittently loading, at the moment - my brain feels like trying to look at Tumblr on your phone.”

Bucky chuckles. “I mean, we’ve met before - you know my tolerance for inappropriate humor is pretty high. I must have a cast iron - whatever organ handles levity.”

“Funny Bone?”

“ _Nice_ \- but a bone isn’t an organ, unless you mean Funny Boner -”

“I set that one up too easy, didn’t I?”

“Yes you did. And as for my therapist - she hasn’t said it in so many words, no. But she mostly likes to talk about my lack-of-a-daddy issues, so who’s to say, really.”

Steve squints up at him again, an unreadable look on his face. “Would you like to get a cup of coffee after this?” he asks, surprising Bucky.

“Uh, like a pity coffee?” Bucky teases, attempting to cover how off-kilter he suddenly feels. “‘Cause I gotta tell ya, Steve, there isn’t a latte big enough to make up for the fact that most of my shoes now have velcro fasteners. A nice blowjob might do the trick, though, if you’re dead set on being charitable.”

Steve laughs, big and bright, and Bucky must not have made that happen either of the other two times they’ve met, because he’s sure he would have remembered a laugh like that. “I’ve been waiting for the blowjob joke to rear it’s inevitable head - and oh shit, please don’t -”

“No, that one is _definitely_ too easy -”

“And no - not a pity coffee. It’s just that I forgot that you’re one of the most interesting people to talk to that I’ve ever met, and I was gunna head to Starbucks after this, anyway, so I figured - if you’d rather not that’s totally okay.”

The look on Steve’s face is so genuine and overtired and generally adorable that Bucky’s stomach twists up in pleasure. His instinct is to start flirting immediately, but remembering that Steve had barely tolerated him during their past encounters, he figures that he should maybe quit while he’s miraculously ahead.

“Sure,” he says. “A coffee sounds great.”

\---

They finish up their transactions at the counter and then leave the bank together, walking side by side down the block. The atmosphere between them is only slightly awkward, and Bucky is racking his brain for something to say that isn’t ‘Nice job getting even more attractive in the last six years’ or ‘Your hair looks really touchable,’ when Steve breaks the silence.

“Ah, sorry about the job, by the way - I remember you seemed excited about it, the last time we ran into each other, that time with - with Brock.”

There’s enough hesitance in Steve’s voice as he says Brock’s name that Bucky can tell without having to ask that they’ve since broken up. He tries not to feel too pleased by the idea that Steve is currently single, but he can’t really help it.

“Thanks - I mean it was definitely for the best, considering the circumstances,” Bucky tells him. “It’s actually a crazy story and the most dramatic thing that’s ever happened to me. Are you ready for this? Spoiler alert: it involves the FBI, a megalomaniac dickbag, high-level misappropriation of funds, a New York City taxicab, and one actual, literal case of _Gangrene_.”

“Geesh.”

“Geesh indeed. Do you want the long version of the short version?”

“How about whichever version will make me less nauseous.”

“The short version, then,” Bucky decides. “So basically the gist is that my boss, Pierce, had been using his reasearch foundation basically as a front for a massive embezzlement scheme. I figure it out - only after a few years of working directly underneath him, mind you, which was, ah, pretty embarrassing and more than slightly implicating, in the thick of it - so I turn him in to the feds, yadda yadda, he gets sent to prison. And he didn’t end up being very jazzed about that, lemme tell you.”

“I can imagine,” Steve says, shaking his head.

“Yeah. And it turned out that he’d actually orchestrated this like, plot to use me as a scapegoat, in the event anything went south - so if I hadn’t caught on when I did _I’d_ be the one behind bars right now.”

“Jesus.”

“ _Yeah_ . So anyway, Pierce isn’t too pleased, specifically with me and my failure to take the fall for him, so he - get this - hires someone, from prison, to _hit me with a car_.”

“No fuckin’ way.”

“Yes fuckin’ way - specifically a stolen taxi. I swear to god, I had some rando try to assassinate me in broad daylight, like I’m Jason fuckin’ Bourne or some shit. Only the guy he hired wasn’t very good at the whole thing - only managed to run me over a little bit.”

“What the fuck.”

“I know - totally ridiculous. Except then my arm got crazy infected and they had to take it off.”

“What the _fuck_.”

“So yeah, that’s what I’ve been dealing with, lately. Plus the drama of the whole thing pretty much had me blacklisted with every major agency in the city. I did recently get a job doing the books for a small law firm in Brooklyn Heights. It’s, you know, nothing so bad as jail or vehicular manslaughter, but still not my dream job. So that’s my full Unpleasantness Update, in a nutshell. Crazy story right?”

“Ah, _yeah_. Actually I’m sort of desperate to think of it as a story, and not something that actually happened to you - ‘cause otherwise I think I might cry and try to like, wrap you up in a blanket and pat you on the head forever. Jesus Christ.” Steve shakes his head, holding open the door for Bucky as they enter the Starbucks.

“Yeah it was relatively traumatic. Something tells me you’ll appreciate this part, too - the cab that hit me? The ad on the taxi top was for _Mama Mia_.”

Steve blinks up at him, his face a gratifying mask of horror.  “God, that’s awful.”

“I know right - talk about adding insult to injury. I saw it as I was getting hit and I swear the last thought I had before blacking out was ‘Couldn’t it at least have been _Rent,_ or something?’”

Steve snorts with mirth. “Fuckin’ eh - you really are -”

“Freakishly well adjusted? Let’s just put it this way - when the alternatives to any given situation are ‘death’ or ‘wrongful lifetime imprisonment,’ you pick up on the bright side pretty quickly. It could be a whole lot worse, and I know it.”

“Yeah, it could have been an ad for _Cats_.”

This time it’s Bucky’s turn to giggle helplessly, and they just sort of lean against each other in a bout of overtired, mildly-inappropriate hilarity until the sullen barista at the counter asks them if they are going to hurry up and order already.

They step up to the counter and Steve says, still intermittently giggling, “You sure you don’t at least want a flavor shot in your coffee, Barnes? I know it’s not oral sex but it’s still, uh, _tasty_ ,” in a slightly-squeaky voice that sets them both off again.

They end up sitting in the cafe for several hours, trading stories and making jokes until they realize it’s well past time for dinner. They stop at a hot dog cart on the way to the subway, still chatting away like old friends, and Steve even gives Bucky his number before he heads off down into the station to board his train.

Bucky decides to walk the few blocks home, feeling light and contented and a little sore around the middle from laughing, the kinks in his neck all but forgotten.

He texts Steve as soon he makes it through his front door.

 

**Today 8:16 PM**

Me: Hey it’s Bucky :)

Me: You tried that new Korean place near the park yet?

Steve R: **not yet! lunch tomorrow?**

Me: [thumbs up emoji] [thumbs up emoji]

Me: Oops I mean [thumbs up emoji] singular

Steve R: **jesus christ barnes**

Me: `\\_(*L*)_

Steve R: **omg**

 

\---

After that Bucky starts hanging out with Steve all the time. They eat lunch, they eat breakfast, they go to the movies, they go to museums. Bucky isn't really sure why Steve keeps agreeing to hang out with him, but he certainly isn't about to start questioning a good thing.  

Steve is as smart and interesting as Bucky remembers, but he’s also - looser, somehow, a little less closed off than before. He’s still a pretty tightly wound sort of person, but Bucky _likes_ that. He likes that Steve lets him pick at his knots, a little - likes that he knows Steve is letting him. Every time Bucky makes Steve laugh or smile or even roll his eyes, it feels like something he earned - like he’s cracked some sort of Steve Rogers Code For Friends Only. The feeling is a little addicting.

Although, just _looking_ at Steve laugh or smile or even roll his eyes is a little addicting; Bucky has to remind himself often that Steve hasn’t historically been receptive to attempts at flirting.

Bucky doesn’t mind focusing on friendship, though. He’s only just gotten back into the groove with flirting in general, anyhow; Bucky had been off his game for a while – what with the trauma of the divorce and the attempted assassination, not to mention the life-altering injury - but he’s been cautiously wading back into the casual-dating scene in recent months.

It’s a little disappointing to know that Steve specifically isn’t one of the fish in that particular sea, but mostly Bucky’s having too much fun with him to care about some little one-sided crush. It’s not like it’s going to be a problem, or anything - after all, it’s unlikely that it’s going to get _worse_.

Bucky’s pretty sure about that, anyway.

Pretty sure.

\---

It only takes about two weeks for Bucky to get an inkling that he may have miscalculated the strength of his crush on Steve.

Case in point: the way his stomach literally somersaults in his gut when he looks down at his ringing phone and sees Steve’s name pop up on the call screen.

He tamps down his excitement and answers. "What's shakin', bacon?"

"Not much, not much,” Steve replies. “What's, ah, what's up... solo cup?"

"You really suck at that."

"I know. So really, what are you up to today? Wanna hangout?"

"Absolutely. Let's get food, I'm starved."

"Ditto. I really want, like, a pastrami sandwich. Someplace where they still serve loose potato chips on the plate."

"I know just the place."  

Bucky meets Steve at the diner he had suggested, a busy little hole in the wall his grandfather used to take him to when he was young. They sit down at a booth in the corner and order sandwiches and sodas.  

"So," Bucky mumbles through a mouthful of corned beef, "what have you been up to this morning – tell me everything."

Steve shrugs. "There really isn't much of anything to tell – ate a muffin, worked on the sketches for the signage we’re doing for that club down by warf, had a spat with my roommate Sam about the proper level of milk you are supposed to leave in the carton -"

"Oh yeah?"

"He seemed to think that my leaving only half a cup behind was my sneaky way of forcing him to buy the next carton and not, as I said, because I thought he might want a splash for his morning coffee."

Bucky swipes a chip from Steve's plate. "And?"

"And he was right, but I couldn't let him _know that_ , so it became this big thing. He was all pissed off."

"It's hard to imagine a trauma-specializing therapist getting bent out of shape about trivial roommate stuff like that – from what you tell me he seems like the most even-keeled dude ever."

"Mostly," Steve acquiesces. "But he’s still human. Try having loud sex in the room next door to his a few times - you'll get an earful, believe me."

Bucky snorts. "That sounds like a promising story."

"Yeah – right after college, me and Tyler Gurr. 'Screeching like banshees keen on prostate stimulation,' apparently."

"What, like, the two of you?"

"That's often how sex goes, yeah."

"No, I mean it's just hard for me to imagine _you_ being loud during sex, that's all."

"I've said it before, but your imagination has very little to do with reality, Buck."

Bucky rolls his eyes. "Shut up. I'm only sayin' - you're just so prim and proper and tight-laced most of the time. It's hard to picture you letting go like that."

"I am not _prim_. And anyway it's none of your business if I  -

"I would've bet you'd be quiet and stifled and all 'excuse me ma'am/sir' before you come," Bucky goads him, smirking.  

Steve huffs. "Now you're just being a dick. I can be as vocal during sex as the next person, alright?"

"Alright, then – show me."

Steve narrows his eyes. "What."

"C'mon," Bucky presses. "Give me a little sample, right now."

"No."

"Just like a moan or two, c'mon, Stevie. I wanna hear your vocal stylings."

"No – I'm not some sort of performing monkey."

"I knew it – so _demure_."  

"I know what you're doing, Buck. I'm not going to let you antagonize me into putting on a little show for your entertainment."  

Bucky grins. "You sure about that?"  

Bucky watches Steve's jaw harden, but his mouth gives a little twitch. That's all the warning Bucky gets before Steve's entire posture softens, his eyelids fluttering, mouth going slack.  

"Ooh," Steve murmurs, low. He licks his lips. " _Oh_ ," he moans, louder this time, before letting out a groan that makes all the hair stand up on Bucky's arm.  

"Ah," Bucky tries, faltering. He really didn't think Steve would -  

"Oh fuck," Steve slurs, reaching up to run a graceless hand through his own hair and squeezing his eyes shut. "Oh fuck!"  

"Um, Steve," Bucky mutters, noticing that they are starting to attract the interest of a few of the closer tables. Steve just keens louder in response.  

"Oh god – oh god, Bucky, don’t stop. Unghh – don't fuckin' stop." Steve throws his head back, grabs at the edge of the counter in a grip tight enough that his knuckles go white.  

Bucky shifts in his seat, trying to cross his legs as all the blood in his body makes a beeline for his -  

"Buck!" Steve's shouting now. "Oh god – Bucky, Buck, _Bucky_ – yes, right there, don’t stop!" He gives one final cry of "Yes!" before he slumps in his seat and opens eyes.  

Bucky blinks at him over the countertop, feeling dazed. He looks down and realizes he's still holding his sandwich, somewhere between the plate and his mouth.  

Steve smirks and takes a long sip from his straw. "That what you wanted?"

"I – I, uh." Bucky swallows painfully. "Using my name was ah, a nice touch."

For some reason Steve chooses this moment to start blushing, his eyes flicking downward briefly. "Well I had to give a shout out to the sponsor of my theatrical career - you were very encouraging." Steve nods at him and takes another bite of his sandwich.  

“Glad to be of service - to this entire restaurant actually. Jesus, Stevie - I think you should go around and charge a few of these people.”

“Shut the fuck up. You’re a horrible influence on me, you know that?”

“Lucky me. Hey, do you want to come over tonight? Nat was talking about making enchiladas and I really want you two to meet.”

“I can’t tonight, unfortunately - my friend Peg and I are skyping later. Some time soon, though,” Steve assures him, then shoots him a strange look.

“What?”

“It’s just - I don’t know how you two do it,” Steve says. “Divorced and still living together, I mean.”

Bucky expects this sort of reaction from people. It is a little strange, he figures, what he and Nat have - or it must look that way, from the outside.

He and Nat had been married for four wonderful years, then one more less-than-wonderful year, before they’d decided to take the husband-and-wife element out of the equation. It hadn’t gotten _bad_ , exactly, but the feeling of rightness had gone skewed - some sort of strange, indefinable shift occurring between them, until they’d ended up stiff and slightly awkward around each other.

Bucky had stupidly assumed that they’d just go on feeling awkward in silence till-death-do-us-part, until Nat had sat him down one evening and said, ‘Listen, James, we both know this isn’t working’ - but she’d always been the braver one, anyway.

It had been a mutual decision, Bucky knows, and he wouldn’t give up their relationship as it stands now, for anything; without the pressure of romance between them they had settled almost instantly into the kind of friendship that once more fit like a second skin.

The whole thing was for the best, even if sometimes it makes Bucky feel a little jaded, a little cheated - not by Nat, but by the experience in itself. The ‘love of your life’ was supposed to actually _last_ a lifetime, wasn’t it? He can’t help the crawling feeling of guilt, sometimes, too - the feeling that the deterioration of their romantic relationship was somehow his fault.

Bucky had managed to find a unique, complex, makes-you-believe-in-forever type of love, and still he couldn’t hack it. The failure eats at him, in his worse moments - makes him wonder if he’s broken, somehow. Lacking. Afterall, if he couldn’t make it last with Nat, what chance does he have of making it last with anyone else?

“We make it work,” he says, pushing the guilt aside, trying to focus on what he and Nat _do_ have, rather than what they don’t. “It mostly feels like the friendship is the part of it we were always meant to have. It isn’t easy all the time, mind you - but I just, I just can’t imagine, you know, not having her in my life.” He shrugs, shaking of the twinge of self-doubt. “I think I maybe had a point, though, all those years ago - better to keep things casual. All that big-love, soulmates stuff can get - heavy. And I’ve only got one arm to carry my emotional baggage around with, now, so I have be careful about that sort of thing,” he jests.

Steve snorts. “I think that was partially _my_ point, back then. But I know what you mean. It’s definitely - difficult, when things don’t work out.”

Bucky knows, from Steve’ attitude and the very little bit he’s said about it, that he was really broken up about the end of his relationship with Brock. Still is, Bucky can tell, watching Steve’s expression cloud over as he stares down at his plate.

“That’s why I love Grindr,” Bucky announces, trying to lighten the mood. “Who needs the emotional intimacy and it’s inevitable heartbreak when you can have five dick pics in twelve minutes?”

Steve rolls his eyes, batting Bucky’s hand away when he reaches for another chip.

Bucky also gets the sense that Steve hasn’t dated very much since his split with Brock. He wonders why - it’s not like Steve wouldn’t have offers, if he was looking for one. “C’mon, Rogers, let’s make you a profile  - or no, you won’t even need that - we’ll just pop into a few of the bars nearby and you can give a reprise of that performance, I’m sure you’ll be beating them off with a stick. Or they’ll be beating off your -”

“Fuckin’ eh, Barnes,” Steve cuts him off, trying to look exasperated and failing, the corners of his mouth twitching. Bucky’s chest warms with pride. “Finish your fuckin’ sandwich, Jesus Christ.”

“You have to stop calling me that in public, Stevie - people are going to start asking me to multiply loaves, and touching the hem of my - do jeans and a sweatshirt count as ‘garments’ you think?”

“You are the most irritating person on earth.”

“I love having a title. Hey, you wanna see a movie tonight?”

“Yeah.”

\---

The more time Steve spends with Bucky, the less he’s able to remember why he’d felt so negatively about him in the past.

Bucky is funny and genuine, so unabashedly free with himself and his feelings -  it’s an aspect of him that Steve knows he found annoying when he was younger, but that he now finds uplifting and more than a little inspiring. Steve realizes at this point that it’s not that Bucky doesn’t take anyone else seriously, it’s that he doesn’t take _himself_ too seriously - an attitude that Steve knows he himself could stand to emulate.

Steve’s been worried that he’s gotten too cynical, too jaded, in recent years - especially since the breakup with Brock - but he can feel himself brightening in Bucky’s presence. He’s starting to crave the feeling, actually, in a way that almost concerns him, but that he doesn’t think he can help. Even after everything he’s been through, Bucky still chooses to be kind and funny, playful and goofy; it’s hard for Steve not to mirror that sort of relentless positivity right back at him.

Bucky smiles at Steve, slow and lazy in that way of his. Steve’s not sure he’s ever met someone whose resting expression is a smile, before Bucky; he remembers that he’d found the trait vaguely mocking, the first two times they’d met, but now it just makes Steve feel warm and oddly fond.

He smiles back, unable to stop himself.

Steve’s not in _denial_ about his crush on Bucky; he’d just prefer not to talk about it or think about it or acknowledge it in any way.

Steve finds this to be a particularly tall task when faced with a moment such as this one, with Bucky lounging across Steve’s sofa, looking all handsome and contented and comfortable in Steve’s home. But what is Steve supposed to do, say ‘I’m super into you,’ or ‘ Please just get out of my house’?  The latter isn’t very polite, and as for the former - Steve isn’t about to tell Bucky about his sort-of-maybe feelings, firstly because that would fall into the category of acknowledging them, and second because there is no way Bucky would actually want to -

“I want to go on a date,” Bucky says.

Steve nearly chokes on his mouthful of pizza. He coughs for a few minutes, Bucky helpfully thwacking him on the back several times, before managing to reply, “Uh, what?”

Bucky shrugs and fiddles with the little chunk of crust on his own plate. “I just mean - you know like, generally - I want to have a go at dating again. It’s, you know, been a while but -”

“What do you mean ‘it’s been a while’ - you were just telling me this morning about the threesome you had two nights ago with that couple you met at the gym. I remember because you described it in great detail - and we were on the _subway_.”

“Huh?” Bucky frowns slightly as if he’s confused. “I don’t mean a hookup, I mean a date - someone that will want to hang out for more than a night or two, someone that wants to ask me probing questions about my life, not just probe my -”

“Buck.”

“What? Hey do you think there’s like, a fetish where people pretend to be abducted by aliens? Like a sex thing? No, of course there is -”

“Please tell me that you were going someplace else with that and just got off topic.”

“Oh! Yeah, tangent, sorry. What I meant to - I mean - do you know anyone who’s single?”

“A few people - why?”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “I’m starting a club - ‘Sergeant Barnes' Hot and Lonely Hearts Club Band.’ _Why_ \- to date, you schmuck. I’m asking you to set me up.”

“Oh.” Steve’s stomach drops. “Like, with someone I know?”

“No, with some rando off the street. Yes, with someone you know - otherwise I’d just get back on Tinder. Hey, speaking of people you know - how come I’ve never met Sam? You said he’s your roommate but I’ve hung out here like, six times now and he’s never around.”

Steve makes his eyes go wide. “Wow, yeah - it’s almost like someone’s been carefully orchestrating the two of you never running into each other, or something,” Steve muses, mock innocent.

“Oh ho!” Bucky points his half-eaten pizza crust at Steve in an accusatory manner. “Now why would you do that? Is it because he’s hot and you’re afraid I’ll fall in love with him and won’t have time for you anymore?”

Steve feels himself blush. It’s not like that possibility hadn’t occurred to Steve, but it wasn’t - “No that’s not - I haven’t really been doing it on purpose, I just -”

“Oh my god that’s totally it! Look at you all preemptively conniving and jealous - what is he like, _super_ hot or something?”

“Sam is very attractive,” Steve concedes. “But that’s not - I haven’t really been keeping you from meeting him, I was only kidding.”

“Alright, whatever you say - but know that when Sam and I get married I’ll still make time for you.”

“Shut up,” Steve groans. “So are you serious - ah, about the set-up thing?”

“I mean - yeah.” Bucky sits up, looking down at his shoes. “Well, um, what about - what about, uh, you?”

“What about me?”

“I mean what do you think about maybe… Have you been out with anybody, since Brock? I could set you up too.”

Steve feels his cheeks heat again. It’s not that Steve _hasn’t_ dated, since Brock, but his romantic life has been - sporadic, to say the least. He hasn’t really been in the mood.

Steve truly has no idea how Bucky’s managed to bounce back the way he has, in the face of everything that’s happened to him in recent years. Steve doesn't have a frame of reference for most of what Bucky has been through - attempted assassination for one, Jesus - but in terms of failed romance...

In all honesty, Steve feels a little bit like _he’s_ divorced - which is ridiculous, he knows, since he and Brock never even went as far as sharing an apartment, let alone a marriage- and he sometimes worries that the pain of the whole thing has put him off dating for life. 

Steve and Brock were together for five years, and Steve had really thought, in the middle of it, that Brock was 'the one.' Even though Brock had still insisted on keeping their relationship primarily under wraps, even though Steve still had never met most of Brock’s friends, or colleagues, or family - Steve still thought that they’d figure it out, together - that they’d make it work, eventually.

Steve had tried so hard not to pressure Brock, to let him move at his own pace. But eventually he’d cracked, finally just coming out and asking Brock - after yet another fruitless conversation about the potential of moving in together - if their relationship was going to just remain a secret forever. Turned out the answer was a definite 'No' - not in regard to the ‘secret’ part of the equation, but to the ‘forever’ bit instead.

The whole debacle had been devastating, the worst part of it being Steve’s private conviction that he’d been the one to break his own heart, not to mention Brock's, in the end. If he’d just given Brock a little more time, or understanding - maybe things would have turned out differently. It's a hard thing to forgive himself for. 

And knowing that a lot of Brock’s trouble with commitment was wrapped up in his struggle to accept his sexuality didn't exactly help Steve feel less personally rejected, either, especially given how quickly and seemingly painlessly Brock had cut Steve out of his life after their breakup. 

All tallied, the whole situation hadn’t really made Steve all that eager to put himself back out there again. Watching Bucky's skillfully jump back into the dating pool in spite of his own trauma completely mystifies him, if he's being honest; Steve's had trouble even feeling attracted to anyone since his breakup. In fact, Bucky is one of the first people Steve has actually -

He cuts the thought off.

“Not really, no,” he admits. “But I don’t know, Buck.”

He bites down on the urge to say ‘I sort of thought maybe you and I could give it a try,’ since here Bucky is asking Steve to find him someone _else_ , which doesn’t exactly imply that Bucky has similar feelings for Steve, now, does it? Steve tries not to let the idea sting, but it’s hard to avoid.

“Nah c’mon, Steve, it’ll be great! How about this - Friday night we both bring somebody for each other to meet. We can meet up at that taco place around the block from your last job site. It’ll be very casual.”

Steve’s not sure he’s heard a less appealing plan in his life, but the look on Bucky’s face is so hopeful and eager that he finds himself saying, “Alright.”

\---

Steve shouldn’t be surprised by his current predicament, he knows.

It had taken all of five minutes back in Bucky’s presence for Steve to recall that Bucky speaks ‘overexaggerated flirtation’ like a second language; Steve had initially thought it was just part of Bucky’s Steve-specific antagonism, but now he realizes that Bucky is like that with everyone. He knows Bucky likes to flirt, likes to date - hell, Steve’s seen Bucky put the moves on like, seven people in the month since they’ve started hanging out - and Bucky has a pretty good track record of success. Which is also unsurprising.

Steve just can’t really believe Bucky had asked _him_ to act as matchmaker; sure, Bucky isn’t really responsible for handling Steve’s pesky feelings with care - especially since he knows nothing about them - but still, Steve can’t help but feel a little bruised.

Which is exactly why Steve shouldn’t be allowing himself to dwell on his unproductive infatuation in this first place, he knows. He resolves to push it aside and let Bucky do whatever it is Bucky wants to do.

As far as _who_ Bucky is going to do…

Steve is intermittently racking his brain for candidates and groaning out loud when Sam gets home an hour later.

“Steve? You home? You would not believe -” Sam wanders into the living room from the front hall, his messenger bag dangling off one shoulder. He takes one look at Steve and says, “What’s got you all in a tizzy?”

Steve sighs; he’s not sure if it’s the intuition from his years as a therapist or just some sort of Steve-related sixth sense, but Sam has always been able to see right through his bullshit.

The prospect isn’t exactly appealing this time, given that the current bullshit is of the highly embarrassing, deeply depressing, ‘the first guy I’ve developed feelings for in a long time wants me to play cupid for him’ variety.

Although, considering Steve _just_ decided to expunge himself of those inconvenient feelings, the point is kind of moot.

“Ah,” Steve murmurs, waffling. “Bucky asked me to set him up, and I’m just having a little trouble thinking of someone, is all.”

Sam raises an eyebrow. “This would be the Bucky you won’t stop talking about?”

Steve flushes. “I haven’t been - you make it sound like I’m obsessed, or something.”

“I wouldn’t say obsessed,” Sam objects. “Hung up on, twitterpated by, starry-eyed over - now _those_ are some words I might use.”

“I don’t - I’m not - there’s no -”

“I think the stubborn idiot doth protest too much,” Sam singsongs in a high falsetto.

Steve rolls his eyes, trying to rein in his blush with little success. “No Sam, really. It isn’t like that.”

“Okay - why not?”

“What do you mean, why not?”  
“I mean you seem to like him well enough as a friend - why not as more than a friend? Is he unattractive?”

“No - no he’s very attractive, it’s just -”

“Is he difficult to get along with? Is he a bad guy?”

Steve finds himself shaking his head before he can help it. “I mean he’s sort of an obnoxious - he can be a bit of a dick, but not like, a Dick - no, Bucky’s great. He’s really great - I just -” Steve scrambles, trying to find his footing. “Those aren’t the only requirements for being into someone romantically,” he points out.

“What else is there?”

“There’s - it’s - _chemistry_. The good-on-paper stuff isn’t enough, Sam, you know that.”

Sam raises both eyebrows now. “And you’re saying you and Bucky don’t have chemistry?”

Steve thinks of the sound of Bucky laugh, the way it always makes Steve feel like laughing, too. He thinks of the way Bucky sometimes looks at him when he’s talking, as if he already knows what Steve is going to say, but he still wants to hear him saying it. He thinks of a specific moment from their trip to the museum yesterday, when Bucky had briefly placed his hand on Steve’s lower back as they’d pushed past the crowd assembled around one of the larger sculptures - of how he hasn’t been able to get his mind off of those brief seconds of contact for more than a few minutes at a time in the intervening twenty-four hours.

He thinks of earlier tonight, here on the couch, Bucky sitting next to him all soft and close - of the small tear in the collar of Bucky's blue T-shirt, and how distracted he had been by the idea of slipping his thumb inside it, to feel the warmth of Bucky's skin. 

“No,” he croaks, weakly.

Sam snorts. “Well then, set Bucky up with me,” he declares.

Steve stares at him. “What?”

“Well he does sound great on paper - why don’t we see whether or not _I_ have chemistry with Bucky. I mean you don’t have feelings for him, so it’s not like it would be weird, right?”

Steve is absolutely aware that Sam is calling his bluff. He’s also absolutely aware that he’s going to let him. “Um, okay. Alright,” he agrees, heart in his throat. “No - no, it wouldn’t be weird. Bucky and I are just friends.”

“Man, this is just too easy,” Sam mutters under his breath. “Alright, great - when are we going out.”

“Uh, Friday. It’s actually - it’ll be a double date. Bucky’s ah, bringing someone for me, too.”

“No shit, really?” Sam’s face softens a bit. “That’s actually - that’s great, Steve. You should be putting yourself out there again - you never know, you might actually hit it off with whoever Bucky brings.”

And if Steve wasn’t eager to put the lid on this conversation a second ago, he certainly is _now_ ; he’s gotten every variation possible of the ‘Plenty of fish in the sea’ speech from Sam in the last year, and he isn’t angling for a reprise. “Sure, Sam,” he sighs, getting up off the couch and heading for his room and it’s closable door.

Truthfully, Steve has been so consumed with the implications this fiasco has for his and Bucky’s relationship that he hasn’t given more than a passing thought to the prospect of actually liking Bucky’s candidate.

There is something morbidly intriguing about the concept - of finding out what Bucky really thinks of Steve in this sense, of meeting the kind of person Bucky can see Steve with, romantically, if not himself.

Still, the odds that Steve will be as attracted to whoever Bucky brings to this date as he is to Bucky himself are decidedly slim.

Now what Steve is going to do if Sam and Bucky end up hitting it off, he has absolutely no clue - God, how could he have agreed to this?

Steve spends the next few hours groaning into his pillow before falling asleep.

\---

Bucky’s been mentally kicking himself for the last ten blocks. He’s almost considering actually kicking himself, but he’s wearing his steel-toed boots today, and he isn’t sure he wants to add actual bruising to his list of grievances.

God, he is such an idiot. What did he think was going to happen when he brought the subject of dating up, that Steve was going to offer himself up as an option, just like that? That in response to Bucky ineptly fishing for a date Steve was gunna be all, ‘Yeah you know what, I’m free, actually - date me’?  

Then Bucky had just _run with it_ , of course, trying to cover for his complete failure of a come-on with even more ineptitude - and now Steve was actually going to set him up on a date, with someone _else_.

And worse, Bucky had gone the extra mile and offered to set up Steve too. Which is exactly what you want, isn’t it - the task of acting as matchmaker for the very person you’ve become rapidly obsessed with. What a dream.

Bucky really doesn’t know how he gets _anyone_ to agree to go out with him, at this rate. Steve does make his brain a bit fuzzier than the people Bucky usually hookups with, but still, this is just ridiculous. Who on earth is he going to bring?

As he does when prompted with any grievance, no matter how small, Bucky pulls out his phone to call Nat.

She answers on the first ring. “Hey bud, what’s shakin’?”

“Hey! So, ah, you know how I have a little bit of a crush on Steve?” Bucky starts, without preamble.

Nat snorts. “I’m just gunna bypass that mountain-made-molehill and say, yes - I’m familiar with your ‘crush.’ We’re talking about the guy I haven’t actually met yet but know practically everything about, right?”

“I can hear those air quotes, and they are not appreciated. _Steve_ , yes. Anyway, I fucked it up.”

“How?”

Bucky sighs, knowing that if he still had two hands he’d be wringing them together in frustration. “Well I was trying to poke around, you know - see if maybe he’d be receptive to me asking him on a date. But I got all nervous and I totally fumbled. I fumbled _bad_.”

“How bad?” Nat asks.

“I somehow proposed the idea of he and I setting each other up, with like, _other_ people.”

“Yikes.”

“Yeah, for some sort of double-blind-date this Friday.”

“That’s not what you want.”

“No, that is definitely not what I want - fuck, what am I supposed to do? He’s expecting me to find him - who the hell am I going to bring? And if I do find someone, what if they hit it off and actually start - oh my god, I fucked _up_.”

“Just make it someone who you know Steve won’t like, then there’s no chance of them actually getting together,” Nat advises. “Here’s an idea - bring _me_. That way you’ll be doubly positive that nothing will come of it, since there’s no risk of potential investment on my end either. And I’ll get a free dinner - everybody wins.”

“I dunno, Nat - the guy’s like, eighty shades of adorable. And a little bit of an asshole, too - totally your type, you’ll probably hit it off. Fuck, please don’t start actually dating my crush.”

Nat snorts again. “I do my best to resist, James.”  

“I have a hard time fathoming that he won’t be into _you_ either, but I suppose it is the best option,” Bucky groans.

“Or you could just _tell him_ you made a mistake and you really just want to go out with him alone,” Nat suggests.

“What, just hit him with the mortifying and chance-ruining truth? No thanks. Jesus, I really don’t even know what happened - usually I have no problem with this. Usually I’m _smooth_.”

“Yeah, totally - as I recall your opening line to me was ‘Usually people take me to dinner before I let them put me in a choke-hold, but for you I’ll make an exception.’ The height of class.”

“Hey, you know what they say - people that say _yes_ to awful pickup lines shouldn’t throw stones.”

“Touche.”

\---

Bucky and Nat show up to the restaurant fifteen minutes early; Bucky’s ma always says that it helps to see a problem coming from as far off as you can manage, and this time he is taking that advice to heart. Turns out he needn’t have bothered pushing Nat out of the apartment before she’d had a chance to finish her makeup, though, as Steve uncharacteristically ends up arriving an ten minutes late.

Bucky catches sight of Steve approaching their table, wearing his customary jean jacket and a nervous look on his adorable face. Walking next to him is one of the hottest guys Bucky has ever seen. Bucky’s own nerves ratchet up several notches.

“Hey!” Bucky greets them, grinning widely to cover his irrational panic.

“Hi - hey,” Steve responds, then gestures between Bucky and Tall, Dark and Almost-Unbearably Handsome. “Bucky this is Sam, Sam this is Bucky.”

“Hello, Sam.” Bucky smiles at Sam, with at least a cursory attempt to make it charming and flirtatious. Then the penny drops and he looks back to Steve. “Wait - _Sam_ , Sam? As in your very best friend and roommate?”

“Ah, yeah,” Steve affirms, looking perplexed by Bucky’s shock.

“Uh.” Bucky gapes at him for a beat, before remembering his manners. “Oh shit! Sorry - Steve this is Nat, Nat this is Steve.”

“Hi Nat,” Steve says to her, reaching forward to shake her hand.

“Hi Steve - glad to finally meet you. I’ve heard, ah, a _lot_ about you,” Nat tells him, eyes twinkling as she looks Steve over. Bucky suppresses a groan; it seems as if his earlier instructions to ‘play it cool, Nat, for god-sakes, I’m begging you’ fell on deaf ears.

Steve’s eyebrows practically meet his hairline as he looks at Nat - which Bucky can’t really blame him for, as Nat tends to inspire that sort of reaction in almost everyone lucky enough to set eyes on her, but it still makes Bucky’s heart drop into his boots. God, what if Steve actually develops a crush on  -

Bucky’s thought is cut off when Steve’s head whips back in his direction. “What the - _Nat_ ? As is your _ex-wife_?” Steve hisses up at him, his expression incredulous.

Bucky blinks at him. “Wha - I mean, yeah. Why -”

“Excuse us, Sam, Nat,” Steve says to them, before tugging Bucky forcibly by the sleeve a few feet away from the table. “What do you mean, _why_ ?” Steve whisper-shouts at him, his face gone suddenly red and blotchy. “I cannot believe you - you said this would be ‘casual’ - what in the hell is casual about setting me up on a date with your fuckin’ _ex-wife_ , you jerk?”

“Hey! What’s so wrong about -” Bucky tries, but Steve cuts him off.

“It’s weird!” Steve barks, sounding oddly strangled. “And inappropriate! Not to mention way, way too much pressure -”

Bucky feels his own face go hot. “I could say the same thing to you! I was just joking about hooking up with Sam, that time - no offence to Sam,” Bucky adds, gesturing back at him. “Who is like, incredibly sexy, now that I’m actually seeing him - like, _wow_ . But talk about intimidating! Your _best friend_ , Steve? What if we didn’t hit it off - that would totally jeopardize our -”

“You’re the one who asked me to find you a date! Who in the hell did you want me to bring?” Steve interrupts him, fuming.

“I - I -” Bucky stutters, his gaze dropping away from Steve’s. “I don’t know.”

“Well I - I just - this isn’t what I...” Steve trails off, visibly deflating, though the color is still high in his cheeks.

“Wow, this is even better than I thought,” Bucky hears Sam say, voice low. Bucky sees Steve shoot him a glare.

“I know, right?” Nat agrees, sotto voce. “I mean I knew it was bound to be entertaining, but this is like telenovela-level dra-”

“ _Nat_ ,” Bucky grits out, throwing her his own glare and telepathically imploring her to not to make this worse.

Nat sighs, looking back and forth between Steve and Bucky with a satisfied expression. "Alright, boys, as amusing as it is to watch this play out, it turns out I’m not actually that hungry. Besides, I have to get up early for my Krav Maga class downtown."

Sam snaps and points a finger gun at her. "That's where I know you from! I take a yoga class in the same building as your gym – I've definitely seen you there a few times, in passing."

Nat smirks, raising an eyebrow. "That memorable, huh?"  

Sam smiles at her, full watt. "I think it'd be hard to forget the pretty redhead on her way to beat up a bunch of guys."

Bucky catches Steve narrow his eyes and glance from Sam to Nat, then back again.  

Sam starts backing away from their weird little huddle. "Ya know, I actually should get going too – just realized I forgot to feed the cat."

Nat smiles at him, taking a step back herself. "Oh you have a cat too? What's its name?"

"Tin Foil – he's a leftover from a former roommate. But we're buds now – apparently my butt scratching abilities are up to snuff.” Sam winks.  

"I'll bet they are."

"So hey, are you headed back west? We could share a cab."

“Sounds great.”

At this point Bucky and Steve are just standing there, staring at Sam and Nat as they walk away.

“Uh, bye,” Steve calls to them, as they reach the door. Neither of them turn around.

“Wow,” Bucky murmurs and Steve turns to look at him, his expression unreadable. “That was a lightning-fast brush off. Though I suppose we deserve it, given that we were, ah, pretty fuckin’ rude ourselves -  bickering like that, with the two of them standing right there.”

“Don’t forget embarrassing - ‘cause we were definitely that, too. God,” Steve moans, covering his face with his hands. “I cannot believe we just did that.” He drops his hands and sighs. “I’m sorry I yelled at you, Buck. I was just so thrown off by -”

“Yeah - yeah, me too,” Bucky hastens to agree. “Guess this whole thing was a bad idea, wasn’t it?”

“Pretty much.” Steve shuffles on his feet a little, eyes fixed on his Doc Martens.

“I should have just stuck with Tinder,” Bucky jokes, weakly.

Steve looks back up at him, his expression once again indecipherable. “Yeah - yeah, maybe you should. Obviously we both suck at the matchmaking thing,” he sighs.

Bucky huffs a laugh, though he isn’t feeling particularly amused. “Yeah, I guess we do.”

Steve rubs at the back of his neck. “You know, Buck, I’m not - I shouldn’t have agreed to this, anyway. The whole idea of a blind date - any sort of casual dating, actually - I’m just not, I’m not really interested in the concept, right now.”

Bucky’s stomach sinks watching him - he should never have pushed Steve into this. He hadn’t intended to, he knows, but -

“I’m not - I don’t think I’m, you know, ready,” Steve finishes, looking sheepish and vulnerable.

“Oh - yeah. I totally get it,” Bucky hastens to assure him. “I completely understand.”

“Okay,” Steve says, with another one of those mysterious, sky-blue looks. “Good.”

\---

Sam and Natasha start dating immediately following their disastrous evening at the restaurant, to Bucky’s utter lack of surprise.

Bucky has absolutely no complaints about this; he loves seeing Nat happy, and he’s really glad at the chance to get to know Sam, who is rapidly proving himself to be an actual angel of a human being, not to mention one of the hunkiest people Bucky has ever met.

To be honest, Bucky is a little jealous of Nat, actually - Sam is a complete catch, and in other circumstances Bucky likely would have been all over him. He sort of can’t help being all over him anyway.

Bucky is relieved they’ve all managed to move past the impossible awkwardness of that initial evening, in any case. Even if one side-effect of the whole thing is that Bucky is now more convinced than ever that he has a less-than-zero chance of ever getting together with Steve.

Because would Steve have willingly tried to set Bucky up with someone as wonderful - not to mention as personally connected to himself - as Sam if _he_ was the one with romantic feelings for Bucky? It seems highly unlikely.

Plus, given the way Steve had reacted in the aftermath of the botched double-date - the pained, confused look he’d worn when he’d said ‘I’m not ready’ - it’s clear to Bucky that Steve is also still harboring feelings for his ex.

Bucky tries not to feel irrationally jealous over the idea, but it’s - difficult, to say the least.

One positive side-effect of of Sam and Natasha’s burgeoning relationship is that Steve and Bucky’s friend groups start to intertwine with more and more frequency.

For instance, they’re currently all assembled at a bar in Brooklyn Heights, to celebrate Sam’s birthday.

“You’re lookin’ good tonight, birthday boy. Full homo,” Bucky greets Sam, clapping him on the back. “Actually not ‘full’ since I’m bi. How’s this: to-the-fullest-extent-to-which-I-am-personally homo. Anyway, you look hot.”

"You know there are plenty of other people in this bar you could be flirting with right now," Sam points out.

"Well, you know what they say - can't see the forest for the tall, muscular black hotties. I've only got eyes for you, Sammy."

Sam snorts. “Why do men always lie? You’re practically a Beholder, you’ve got so many eyes - not to mention the one very large, very specific eye you have for -” Sam is cut off by the appearance of Nat at his elbow, a smile on her face and a drink in either hand. She hold one of the drinks out to Sam, who takes it, beaming back at her in kind. “Thanks, babe,” he gushes, conversation with Bucky clearly already forgotten.  

Bucky feels all tingly and glad, watching the two of them - then again, maybe he just has to -

“‘Scuse me lovebirds, I’ve gotta go take a piss,” he tells them, before heading off in the direction of the men’s room. He spots Steve on his way over, standing in a cluster with Clint and his girlfriend Darcy, who Bucky had met the day before.

Steve catches Bucky’s eye over Darcy’s head and grins; Bucky ignores the way this makes his insides dance and smiles back, raising his hand in a little salute.

An hour later Bucky is slumped in a pleasantly-buzzed stupor over one of the little tables against the wall, half listening to Sam rave about the migration pattern of some falcon or eagle or something, and half idly-watching Steve as he heads to the bar for another beer.

Bucky has been trying to avoid making a habit of staring at Steve, but he’s currently three jack and Cokes deep and in a mood to indulge himself.

He watches as Steve’s attention, and obvious ire, focuses on a pair of men sitting at a table close to the bar: two slicked-back-hair, square-toed-loafer-wearing dude-bros, from the looks of them, who are being none too polite to their waitress, judging by the dead-eyed, forced smile on her face and the murderous look in Steve’s eye.

Steve looks away from the men and makes eye contact with Bucky across the room. Bucky shakes his head at him, mouthing ‘No.’ Steve rolls his eyes and takes a swig out of his fresh beer, as if to say ‘But look at these mooks, Buck, do I really have any choice?’

Bucky tries to communicate telepathically that _yes_ , Steve absolutely does – and the choice that avoids the possibility of a black eye or a missing tooth is definitely a good choice to make. He shakes his head more emphatically.

Steve sets his jaw, a look in his eye not unlike the one Fuzzy Lentil gets right before she pushes a glass off the edge of the counter. Steve pushes himself off the bar and steps toward the little table, saying something to the two men that Bucky can’t make out but is likely not complementary, judging by the way the men’s faces instantly redden and one of them pushes back his chair and stands, pushing right into Steve’s space.

Bucky’s halfway across the room before he even registers the movement of his feet.

“What seems to be the problem here, pal?” Bucky asks Steve, as soon as he’s in range.

“Not much,” Steve replies, voice calm even as he stares down the one guy looming over him. “I just objected to the tone they were using to talk to their server, is all. And based on some choice remarks they made to her, I’m fairly positive our stances on immigration are in conflict, as well.

“Sounds reasonable to me,” Bucky comments, coming to stand just behind Steve’s left shoulder.

“Oh, does it?” sneers the guy in Steve’s face. He turns to his buddy, now also standing, and says, “Look, Tommy, seems like the little prick has got himself a friend.”

“Oh, language, fellas,” Bucky admonishes. “Steve here doesn’t like that kind of talk.”

“I don’t think I give a single fuck what this bitch-ass twink thinks," not-Tommy spits.

Steve looks back at Bucky and shrugs. "Well two out of three, I suppose – I am short. And I can be a tad bitchy, when the mood strikes."

Bucky shrugs back. "I mean the twink thing isn't too far off base, either, if we're being technical -"

"Don't you even start. And since when is 'twink' a technical term?"

"Dunno, but I'm pretty sure it's the only suitable nomenclature for someone wearing that pair of  jeans."

"I asked if they were too tight before we left and you said they were fine!"

"Did I? Maybe it was the 'too' that threw me – entirely subjective. If you had said 'extremely' or 'exceptionally' I could have given you closer guidance. I mean look at them, Stevie, they're basically jeggings."

"They are _not_ -"

"Fuckin’ eh,” apparently-Tommy cuts in. “Are you two fucks gunna just continue the comedy routine or are we gunna take this outside?”

"Oh we're sorry, were you having trouble following along?” Bucky questions him. “I know we were using some big words there - for future reference ‘jeggings’ are a type of -"

"Go fuck yourself," apparently-Tommy growls.

"Oh, all the time, man, all the time. Here's a tip – get one of those dildos with the suction cup bases for the shower - 10/10, I highly recommend."

“Fuck _off,_ ” not-Tommy grits out, crowding in on Bucky instead.

“I think you should back off, buddy, before I really give you something to be pissed about,” Bucky tells him, taking a step back, out of not-Tommy’s spittle-flinging range.

“Oh yeah?” Not-Tommy scoffs, “You and what _arm_ -y?”

Bucky snorts, looking back to Steve. “Now that one was actually pretty good.”

Steve shrugs again, glaring at apparently-Tommy with his fists clenched. “Oh I dunno, Buck, I didn’t like it much - I know these two are probably just insecure about their micro-penises, but I don’t really think that gives them cause to be so rude.”

\---

Bucky is the one that goes home with a black eye, that night.

On the upside, Steve finally buys him a strawberry milkshake - as recompense for his assistance, he says, as if Bucky wouldn’t have had his back no matter what.

Steve says some other things too, but Bucky gets a little distracted watching him suck on his broken knuckles in between taking sips of his own milkshake and forgets to listen. Steve’s mouth is proving to be a source of endless distraction for Bucky, these days.

Steve makes them stop at the bodega on the corner to get a bag of frozen peas, then pokes and grumbles at Bucky until he’s forced to lie down on Steve’s couch with the bag pressed against his sore eye.

It _does_ feel a little better, even more so when Steve props Bucky’s feet on his lap and lets Bucky choose what to watch on Netflix. They settle in for a few episodes of _Gilmore Girls_ , Bucky feeling content and happy even with the throbbing eye and the slowly-thawing bag of peas dripping condensation into his hair.

“God, this is so cringe,” Steve comments, watching Rory impersonate Donna Reed. Bucky smiles to himself; Steve’s occasional use of britishisms - no doubt picked up as a side effect of his friendship with Peggy - is endlessly endearing. Bucky wants to tease him about it, but he also doesn’t want Steve to stop. “Do you think Dean would have worn one of those ‘#Menanist’ T-shirts?” Steve ponders, watching the screen with a look of distaste.

Bucky rolls onto his side so he can see better, his stomach swooping when the movement causes Steve’s fingers to come into contact with the bare skin of Bucky’s ankle. “Worse - I think he would be all, ‘Well I’m personally a feminist, but you have to admit those guys have a point’ and, ‘I like roast beef,’” Bucky mutters, trying to hold as still as possible. Steve hasn’t moved his hand.

Steve snorts. “What about roast beef?”

“Well you just know that a guy whose favorite meal is roast beef has to be a condescending, hypocritical jerk.”

“How do you know that’s his favorite?”

“I think you are underestimating the amount of times I’ve seen this show. Man, if they ever have an early-two-thousands TV trivia night down at the bar I am going to _clean up_.”

“You are the only person I know who regularly quotes _Lizzie McGuire._ ”

“‘Why do we have to draw fruit, anyway? I want to draw *NSYNC.’” Bucky is putting everything he has into trying not to flinch. Steve’s hand is very warm. “Hey, am I the only one that ships Luke and Taylor?” he asks, gesturing at the laptop.

“What? Yes, I think it’s safe to say you are the only one.”

“I dunno, there’s just so much _friction_ between them - there’s definitely something there. They’ve got chemistry.”

“If you say so, Buck.”

“Hey, I am a terrific judge of these things.”

Steve shoots him a strange, unreadable look. His thumb slides slightly across Bucky’s skin, over the knob of bone; Bucky shivers.

Steve pulls his hand away and fixes his attention back on the screen. Bucky suppresses the irrational urge to whimper and beg Steve to put his hand back.

He must make some small noise though, because Steve glances back at him and asks, “Do you need a fresh bag?”

“Yes, peas.”

Steve laughs, dislodging Bucky’s feet entirely so he can stand up and head to the kitchen.

Bucky sighs.

He thinks he and Steve make a really good team. Bucky’s just going to have to bury his unrequited infatuation and hope for the best.

\---

It’s the end of October when Bucky starts to realize that his whole under-the-rug-pining scenario might not be as sustainable as he’d initially hoped. He’s having trouble keeping his attraction to Steve under-wraps, for one thing.

It isn’t as if Bucky can help it, though - nearly everyone finds Steve attractive, Steve’s general attractiveness is sort of an objective fact. It isn’t weird for Bucky to acknowledge that.

What is a little weird are those moments when Bucky looks at Steve and just gets - stuck. Steve will wrinkle his nose as he concentrates or the light will hit his hair a certain way, and Bucky will get caught up, staring at Steve's ear or his ankles or the freckles around his left eyebrow and having a clear, crystallized moment of – nothing. He just blanks out. It's as if in those short moments absolutely nothing can fit into his head except that one detail, that one movement - Steve, Steve, Steve.  

Now those moments - _those_ are a little weird. But that doesn’t mean Bucky has to make the _whole thing_ weird, right?  It's not like those moments happen that frequently, anyway. Once or twice a day, tops.

Alright, so Bucky’s completely and totally infatuated with Steve. He can admit it. To himself, anyway - he’s certainly not about to tell _Steve_ . Even though _not_ telling him sometimes makes Bucky feel like he’s going to die.

Steve’s doesn’t feel the same, end of story. He also clearly has residual feelings left over from his relationship with Brock. And some sort of weird on-and-off, trans-continental thing going on with Peggy.

And Bucky’s a total chicken shit.

The whole thing is sort of a mess, really; Bucky heart is still in the habit of flipping over with joy every time he gets so much as a text notification from Steve - which is extremely inconvenient, seeing as the two of them are in almost-constant correspondence, these days.

 

**Today 4:55 PM**

Steve: **hey do you remember tony stark?**

Steve: **from college**

Me: Duh

Me: I met you in his car

Steve: **ohhhh right**

Steve: **well he hosts this massive halloween party every year**

Steve: **real fancy shindig**

Steve: **costume contest, haunted conservatory, bartenders in full tails and zombie makeup**

Steve: **the works**

Me: Color me surprised

Me: Let me guess, he probably mails out invitations? Like gold-embossed ones?

Steve: **naturally**

Steve: **this year they were scented**

Steve: **pumpkin spice**

Me: God I fuckin HATE the pumpkin spice thing

Me: It’s just CINNAMON for godsakes

Steve: **buck i practically have this speech memorized**

Steve: **ive heard you give it at starbucks every morning this week**

Steve: **never seems to stop you from ordering it tho**

Me: I like to be festive

Steve: **so waddya think? U wanna come with?**

Me: Hmmm I dunno, might not be my scene

Steve: **oh its totally our scene**

Steve: **and ill tell you why in two words**

Me: Open bar?

Steve: **got it in one**

Me: Alright, I’m in

Steve: **cool beans**

Steve: **ill text you the address**

Steve: **id say tell nat too but im sure sams already on it**

Me: I’m sure - they’re practically attached at the hip these days

Me: I’d be embarrassed for them if they weren’t so goddamn cute about it

Steve: **ah to be young and in love**

Steve: **what a pair of chumps**

Me: Totally [eye-rolling emoji]

Steve: **i told scott too**

Steve: **ran into him at the pharmacy and he looked like he could use a fun night out**

Me: [thumbs up emoji] [pumpkin emoji]

\---

Bucky and Nat arrive in Manhattan to find Tony’s party already in full swing. Tony’s penthouse apartment is as lavish as Bucky expected - all chrome and polished cement and sleek, uncomfortable-looking furniture. It’s also dark, the lighting turned down low to accommodate the mood of the festivities, and it takes Bucky a while to locate anyone familiar among the crowd of costumed guests.

“Well, well - look who it is,” Tony greets him, appearing abruptly out of the gloom. “James Barnes. Glad you could make it.”

“Hey, Tony. Thanks for having us.” Bucky reaches out to shake Tony’s hand. He survey’s Tony’s boxy costume, the strange, lumpy coin-looking thing attached to Tony’s head. “What in the hell are you supposed to be?”

“Hello,” Tony drawls. “I’m a _Tony_ Award, get it? This isn’t even the best one though - I’ve got two more wardrobe changes before the night is over.” He gives Bucky the once-over in turn. “Barnes, am I wrong or is there - less of you, since we last saw each other?”

Bucky snorts; he had always liked Tony’s brazen sense of humor. “Actually my hair is longer, since college,” Bucky quips.

Tony grins. “Ah, my mistake. This the misses?” he asks, turning to Natasha. “If so, excellent work - I can already tell she’s way out of your -”

“Ex-wife, actually,” Bucky cuts him off, rolling his eyes.  

“Enchante, madame.” Tony offers her an ungainly bow, his bulky costume getting in the way. “That makes more sense - I thought Wilson had told me you and Rogers were - speaking of Wilson and Rogers, they’re here somewhere. I didn’t see them come in but Pepper told me they’d arrived a little while ago. Knowing Wilson they’re probably back there with the snacks,” he says, gesturing over his shoulder toward the one of the other rooms. “I’ve gotta go find Rhodey, make him help me get out of this thing. You kids go have fun. Barnes, find me later - we should catch up.”

“Will do,” Bucky replies, watching Tony shuffle off. Bucky makes a mental note to ask him later if still has the Ferrari kicking around somewhere. 

They finally spot Steve a few minutes later, standing by one of the tables covered in trays of food and glasses of assorted cocktails, dressed in a boxy, red-striped T-shirt and khaki pants.

“You know you can’t really be Waldo without the hat and glasses, Stevie,” Bucky announces as he pulls up at Steve’s side. Then Sam turns around from the table, dressed in a tiger costume that next to Steve’s outfit clearly marks them as -

“Scratch that, Calvin and Hobbs - well aren’t you two just the absolute fuckin’ cutest,” Bucky says, shaking his head in amazement.

“Three years in a row - if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” Sam replies around a mouthful of shrimp-puff. He and Steve fist-bump.

“But hey,” Bucky whines, remembering, “you said you didn’t do group costumes, Wilson. You scoffed at the idea of being Nat and I’s Finn.” Bucky gestures to Nat’s Rey costume and then his own Poe getup, complete with Resistance Pilot’s jacket.

Sam rolls his eyes. “You only offered because I’m the only black guy you - “

“That wasn’t it at all - I offered because I wanted an excuse to smother you in homoerotic subtext all evening. ‘You look so bangable in my jacket,’ etcetera. But Steve gots dibs, for some reason.”

“What was Sam gunna do, leave me high and dry in a pair of fuckin’ khakis just so you could bite your lip at him the whole night?” Steve points out.

“I _did_ pitch the idea of you going as BB-8, Stevie -”

“To which I pitched the idea that you go _fuck yourself_ \- I wasn’t about to spend the evening as your robot-dog sidekick -”

“- but you shot me down.”

“Some space pilot you are,” Sam snorts.

“Speak for yourself, you glorified stuffed animal. And BB-8 isn’t a robot, they’re a _droid_.”

“Whatever,” Steve shrugs, taking a sip of the lurid-orange liquid in his martini glass. “Not everyone is a walking Star Wars-wiki, Buck.”

"What the _fuck_ , Wilson," a curt voice cuts in. "One of us is going to have to change."

They all turn to see Tony, wearing a sour expression and a tiger costume almost identical to Sam's.  

Sam raises his eyebrows. "No way, man - this thing is fuckin’ comfortable. What are you supposed to be, anyhow?"  

"Tony the Tiger, _duh_ ," Tony scoffs, flipping a hand at the red bandanna tied around his neck. "Seriously, you're not going to -"

"What the hell!" An indignant cry makes Bucky turn, revealing Scott, who is holding a tallboy in each hand and donning an increasingly familiar orange and black striped onesie. His is a bit more grimy around the elbows and knees than either Sam or Tony's, but the differences end there.  

"Are you serious, you copycats? I've been Tigger the past six years in a row – I've got dibs on this look," Scott declares with a frown.  

"Oh, for crying out loud," Tony whines.  

Further laments are cut off by the appearance of Clint.  

"Oh sweet! We all match!" Clint beams beneath his own fuzzy hood, his pointy ears bobbing as he bounces on his feet.  

"Not you too," Sam groans.

"Yeah! Well I asked the guy at the costume shop for a 'sexy cat' one, but this is the only thing he had left that was close." Clint shrugs. "Not nearly as sensual as I was hoping for, but I like to think I make it work. I almost cut an ab-window into the belly but that seemed too -"  

"I cannot believe this," Tony grouses. "You three," he points an accusatory finger at his identically striped compatriots, "You better avoid standing near me all night. I'm going this way – do _not_ follow me."

"As if that was something we were considering," Sam adds, in very poor sotto voce.  

Bucky snorts, turning to pick through the trays of snacks on the table. “Ohmyg'd, Steve,” he garbles through a bite-sized potato and leek quiche. “Come here, you gotta try this. I swear it’s like the best thing I’ve ever had in my mouth - and I once went on a date with T’Challa. You remember him? From college?"

“First, you’re disgusting. Second, no fuckin’ way - that guy in the graduating class ahead of us at UC? The _valedictorian_ of the graduating class ahead of us at UC?”

“One and the same - he was the TA for my International Finance class, junior year.”

“And the two of you went out? I’m calling bullshit - he was way too classy for the likes of you. And didn’t he go out with that guy - Erik something, the moody one. I thought they were really serious.”

“I’d just like to call attention to the inherent hilarity of you calling someone else ‘moody’ -”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“But they were always on-again-off-again. I swept in during one of the off periods - lucky me. Damn, T’Challa was such a babe - like Sam, only a more handsome version.”

“Hey,” Sam scoffs. “ _I_ am the more handsome version of me, don’t fuckin’ kid yourself.”

“He’s right,” Nat pipes in, turning around from her conversation with Clint to reach up and press a kiss to Sam’s cheek.

“Thank you, my beautiful tri-bunned space princess,” Sam tells her, reaching to wrap a hand around her waist and pull her close against him.

“Ugh,” Bucky groans. “Festive Cute is like, too good a look on you two. Whaddya say, Calvin” he turns to Steve. “Should we ditch these love-struck idiots and go find some fun of our own?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”  

Bucky spends the rest of the party following Steve from room to room, running into old college friends and laughing at Tony, whose third costume change is accompanied by a dismally off-key performance of ‘The Way You Look Tonight’ that he uses to simultaneously serenade a beaming Pepper Potts and a stone-faced James Rhodes.

Bucky goes home that night with a girl named Wanda, a Reiki and massage therapist that volunteers at Sam’s clinic. Bucky likes her Mabel Pines costume and her soft laugh and her soft hair, and he likes it the next morning when she makes him pancakes and then tells him to ‘Get out of here, now, sugar - I’ve got work to do.’

The whole experience is sweet and fun, but Bucky can’t help but wish the night had gone a little bit differently.

The way Wanda called him ‘sugar’ had reminded Bucky of Steve; he calls Bucky that, sometimes, in jest, but with a warmth in his eyes that - and Christ, is Bucky going to have to live with prospect of every little thing reminding him of Steve - of what he can’t have - forever?

He can’t decide if the idea is appealing or not.

\---

By Thanksgiving Steve has completely given up denial as his modus operandi for dealing with the Bucky situation. For the most part, he’s finding it more difficult to ignore his emotions now that they’ve amped up from ‘Inconvenient Crush’ to ‘Deep, Abiding Love’ levels, and he knows he hadn’t managed it very well to begin with.

Steve still has to ignore _Bucky_ sometimes, though, when Bucky is caught up in being so goofy and adorable that it gets Steve caught up in loving him so hard that he makes himself want to throw up, a little bit.

Sure, Steve still occasionally battles with the compulsion to strangle him, but those impulses are now tempered by the even more occasional impulse to ‘make Bucky smile,’ or ‘tell Bucky how amazing he is,’ or ‘kiss Bucky tenderly on the forehead.’ The whole thing is pretty unfortunate.

Doubly so, considering Steve is fairly positive that his feelings are completely one-sided.

There are moments now when Steve thinks that Bucky is maybe, possibly trying to flirt with him - times when Bucky looks at Steve a little too fondly, or for a little too long - but Steve’s inclined to think that he’s just kidding himself.

Because Bucky is still dating like, a lot. Which is absolutely fine, Bucky is entitled to date as many people as he wants - Steve isn’t _judging_ . It’s just that - if Bucky did have feelings for Steve, wouldn’t he maybe stop attempting to date every single person that _isn’t_ Steve? Wouldn’t he maybe ask _Steve_ out?

Steve quickly pushes aside that train of thought. It’s a moot point, anyhow; Bucky has made it repeatedly clear, in actions and in words, that he’s only interested in casual relationships at this point in his life. Which is also fine - it isn’t Bucky’s fault that Steve isn’t up for casual, himself.

In his worse moments, Steve also has to acknowledge that even if Bucky _did_ want a serious relationship, it's unlikely he'd want one with Steve. After all, Brock hadn't wanted more with him - why would anyone else? He tries to derail that thought as well, but it keeps coming back to him. 

Ultimately he and Bucky just aren’t on the same page, and Steve isn’t going to try to force them to be. He’s knows better now, about the follies of holding another person to his own expectations. Steve won’t let himself make the same mistake twice - especially with Bucky.

Bucky is too important to him now, Steve can’t take the risk of him walking away.

\---

Bucky comes back from the grocery store with the lyrics of some Lil Wayne song stuck in his head. Or not so much the lyrics as one specific line - 'Call me, so I can make it juicy for ya' - looping on repeat in his mind like a perverted mantra.  

He's twerking lazily around the kitchen and mumbling it under his breath when he notices Steve leaning against the doorjamb, a smirk on his face. Nat must have let him in on her way out.  

"Ah," Bucky says, "a witness. Looks like I'm gunna have to kill you."

Steve crosses his arms over his chest. "Either that or you could just _stop dancing_ and we could forget I ever saw a thing."

"Never," Bucky replies, grinding against the front of the fridge. "I cannot give up the groove – I'd rather just take you out."

Steve eyes go wide and he presses a hand against his chest. "Oh Bucky, I thought you'd never ask. Make it someplace fancy, and you're paying."

Steve does this sometimes, makes a joke about the two of them being together like it is so far outside the realm of possibility that it's inherently laughable.  

Suddenly Bucky doesn't feel much like dancing anymore.  

"Alright, then." He straightens up and turns around to put the milk carton he's holding into the fridge. "You gunna help me start the sides for tomorrow, or what? You're on onion chopping duty for the stuffing – you know how much I cry."  

"It's perfectly natural to get emotional about root vegetables, Buck. Just let it out."  

"I'll let you out if you keep it up. Get going – chop, chop."

Steve starts rummaging around, trying to find the cutting board. “Is that a genetic thing, you think - onions and crying? ‘Cause they never seem to bother me. Maybe it’s one of those things that divides people into two groups - criers and non-criers - like being able to roll your tongue.”

“Nah, the only thing that definitively splits humanity into two groups is this: those who pee in the shower and those who don’t. Otherwise known as everyone and dirty liars.”

Steve snorts. “Remind me to never share a bathroom with you. And that’s definitely not a gene thing, that’s a hygiene thing.”

“Good one. I will point out that sadly neither of us is a scientist, so we can’t say that for sure.”

“You’re still really into astronomy, right?” Steve asks.

“Uh, _yeah_. Let’s just put it this way - I ran into Chris Hadfield at a Dunkin’ Donuts last year and I actually cried. It was so humiliating and awesome.”

“Gotcha - well I was just wondering - I bumped into my friend Jane a few days ago, and she mentioned that there are some entry-level research tech positions open at the observatory she works for.”

“Oh.”

“I’m sure it would be a pay cut from what you’re doing now, but I know you don’t really enjoy it and I figured - you’re so smart and passionate, Buck. You should get the chance to do something you actually like. Anyway, I can give you Jane’s number, if you want.”

Steve is such a good friend. It shouldn’t matter at all that Steve doesn’t reciprocate Bucky’s ‘I desperately want to date you’ feelings. And it doesn’t matter, Bucky decides, because if the alternative to dating is friendship, Bucky knows that it isn’t like he’s _settling_ \- quite frankly he’d settle for Steve’s right shoe - as his friendship with Steve is rapidly becoming one of the best and most important things in his life.

He and Steve just aren’t on the same page - so what? Bucky can live with that. After all, he’s lived with worse.

 _Then again_ , he thinks, watching Steve carefully place a plate over the bowl of chopped onions, to act as a lid and stop Bucky from being exposed to the smell, _not kissing this idiot is legitimately painful._

It’s a pain like a toothache, one that makes you want to poke at it, even as you wish it would just go away.

Maybe not as painful as trans-humeral amputation, but still a major bummer.

“Thanks, Steve,” Bucky finally manages, around the lump in his throat. “That’s - yeah, maybe I’ll give her a call.”

Steve glances up at him, beaming, and Bucky feels it like a punch to the gut.

On second thought, this crush just might kill him, after all.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 3 song recs: (there are more because this chapter is definitely More, lol)  
> Halah - Mazzy Star  
> Happy Ending - Alex Cameron  
> On the Lips - Frankie Cosmos 
> 
> Can everybody guess what Tony’s third costume was?
> 
> Also: Pietro was at the Halloween party too (dressed as Dipper obvi) but Bucky didn’t get a chance to meet him as Peitro was too busy running a betting ring in Tony’s private gym, centered around the game ‘How Fast Do You Think Can I Run On This Treadmill After X Number Of Shots.’
> 
> Also Part 2: Yes, Sam Wilson totally plays D&D. I don’t make the rules.
> 
> All Gilmore Girls jokes are dedicated to Farah <3
> 
> Thanks for reading!!!!  
> <3


	5. Part 4 - Winter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Romance, Eventual. 
> 
>  
> 
> (Really Eventual, I mean - there's like, a whole lot of eventual going on in here.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoomp, here it is! ROMANCE! You'll have to read through a bit more 'Overt Pining feat Oblivious Idiots' and 'Kissing Anxiety, The Forgotten Burrito Remix' first, but it's in there, I swear. 
> 
> *** Advisory for: Bucky/Nat feels, even more recreational drinking, Drunk Steve!, Everybody Hates Loki^TM, some further discussion on Coming Out and associated complications, off-screen invasive surgery, off-screen sexy-times, on-screen discussion of sexy-times, and a great deal of very graphic Emotional Constipation.

**December, 2016 - S Oxford Street, Fort Greene, Brooklyn**

At the end of December Sam and Natasha announce that they have found their own place and are moving in together. It’s wonderful and very domestic and Bucky is really, really happy for them and very politely does not point out that only crazy people move in _December_ , when it’s cold as balls in New York and might snow any minute, possibly even the minute you are carrying a very heavy box in your only arm up an increasingly slippery set of stoop stairs.

It really is great for them, though, judging by the giddiness on their faces as they unload countless cardboard boxes from the moving van. The whole thing would be completely heartwarming, on every level, if it didn’t mean that Bucky’s own housing situation was thrown for a loop.

A logical conclusion to the housing dilemma would have been for Steve and Bucky to move in together, but the two of them had studiously avoided even bringing the option up. Bucky isn't sure what Steve's mindset on the prospect had been - maybe it was the peeing in the shower thing, after all, he doesn't know.  

On Bucky's end, he's having enough trouble not blurting out 'I love you' to Steve during their regular hangouts - he isn't sure how well he'd cope if faced with the no-doubt adorable way Steve like, eats cereal, or something. It would probably be too much to bear.  

So Steve had asked Sharon Carter - recently relocated from D.C. - to move into Sam's old bedroom, and Bucky had moved all of his earthly possessions to a crappy little studio on the edge of Fort Greene.

Bucky doesn’t think his new place is that bad, but he _does_ think that Steve and Sharon are maybe flirting with each other, a little bit, and the thought is driving him fucking crazy.

It's not that Bucky doesn't like Sharon - Sharon is a total knockout, and Steve should totally date Sharon if he wants to. But Bucky doesn't _want_ Steve to want to date Sharon, Bucky wants Steve to want to date _Bucky_.  

In retrospect, the mutual and silent agreement to not live together was absolutely a sound decision.  

Christ, Bucky really has to get over this thing he has for Steve. Preferably soon - preferably before Steve does something unfortunate, like fall for a leggy blonde with a fantastic sense of humor who keeps beating Bucky at poker. Or whatever.  

Suddenly Sam’s voice startles Bucky out of his internal groaning.

"Oh no, no way – there is no way in hell you are bringing this in here. Why do you even _have_ this?"

Bucky looks over to where Sam is emptying a box labeled ‘Living Room’ in Nat’s horrible handwriting; he’s holding up a very familiar sword, with a very unfamiliar look of deep concern on his handsome face.

"Ooh my Katana! I knew it had to be in one of these. Give it here." Nat drops the pillow she’d been holding back into the box at her feet and makes grabby hands in Sam’s direction.

Sam holds the sword gingerly out for her to grab, anxiety still written all over him. "But what is it _for_?"

Nat shrugs, unsheathing it to examine the blade for - rust or something, Bucky’s never been sure. "It isn't for anything specific – it's decorative," she says.  

Sam’s eyebrows practically meet his hairline. "What in the hell does a sword have to do with decor?"

"It's nice – I like things that are both useful and aesthetic."  

"And by useful you mean 'deadly,' and by aesthetic you mean 'visibly deadly'?"  

"And it's _shiny_. I thought we could put it over the couch."

"Excuse me?” Sam’s eyebrows and hairline have now achieved complete fusion. “The couch is where we _relax_ – fear of decapitation and relaxation do not jive in my head, babe."  

Bucky hears Steve snort over where he’s unloading books onto one of the newly-assembled shelving units. Bucky shoots him a wink. Steve grins at him.

"Man, if that's how you feel I'm glad I gave my antique grenade collection to Clint," Nat replies to Sam, offhand.   

"You gave it to _Clint_?" Bucky

Nat shrugs again. "Yeah – he said he had the perfect shelf for them in his bathroom."

Bucky shakes his head. "The two of you are a mystery to me."

"You got that right,” Sam cuts in. He continues, in a measured tone, “Okay, I'm putting a pin in the grenade collection – god, I hope all the pins are in the grenade collection, _fuck_ – and I'm revisiting the sword. I'm still feeling very anxious about the wall-sword concept."

"Fine, I'll put it in storage,” Nat relents. “But if I'm compromising on that then you've gotta chuck the cartoon bird sheets – fair's fair, Wilson."

"Cartoon – those are from Pottery Barn!"  

"Whatever, they're tacky."  

"Fine," Sam grumbles. "We've gotta get queen-sized ones for the new mattress anyhow. _Cartoon birds_..." Sam trails off, shaking his head.  

Bucky chuckles and turns to grab another box from the hallway, when he notices the large cactus in the corner.  

Nat's had the cactus forever - affectionately named Suzette, although Bucky has always insisted her true name is 'Lady Very Sharp McStabby Arms.' Bucky has a lot of fond memories with Suzette. Hell, he and Nat had even used her as a Christmas tree all though their marriage, threading tinsel over her spines and wrapping a string of lights around the pot. Thinking of this tradition, Bucky is able to register what is different about Suzette since he last saw her: the pot has changed. Before it had been a butter yellow ceramic cylinder that Bucky had bought at the flea market in Hell's Kitchen, now it's a raw cement cube that looks as if it originated from construction site, or maybe Ikea.  

Bucky feels his heart constrict painfully; that ugly yellow pot had been the very first gift he'd bought for Nat, back when they started dating. He can't _believe_ she got rid of it.  

The feeling of disbelief coalesces and drops through his stomach like a rock. "Nat," he says, her name sticking painfully and strangely in his throat. "What's with the cube?"

Nat follows his gaze to Suzette. "Oh! Well Sam was using it as a holder for his umbrella collection -"

Sam snorts. "It's three – I have _three_ umbrellas. You're the one with five garlic presses, if we are going to talk about weird -"  

Nat ignores him. "But I thought it'd look better on Suzette. Plus, the yellow one has a huge crack in it now - remember? We dropped it on the stairs when we moved out to the place in Bed Stuy."

"Yeah, I remember – I just. I can't believe you'd -" Bucky struggles to get the words out, voice catching, his face suddenly hot. "I mean, just 'cause it's a little broken – and yeah, maybe it was a little loud and bright, maybe it clashed with the new decor, maybe this one is – is objectively better, but you shouldn't just -"

"James."

He's aware that he's close to shouting now, aware that the three of them are staring at him, but he can't stop. "You shouldn't just - just - just _throw it away_ -"  

" _James,"_ Nat's tone is gentle, but insistent. Bucky can feel her gaze on his face but he can't bring himself to meet her eye. "I didn’t. I didn’t throw it away," she continues. "It's upstairs – I figured I'd use it to hold my yarn balls, since they're lighter and wouldn't make the crack worse. Even if it did, I have no intention of throwing it away – you know that. I know you know that."  

"Yeah," Bucky manages, looking down at his feet. "Yeah, okay."

"C'mon man," Sam says softly. He walks over to Bucky and puts a hand on his shoulder, warm and strong. "Help me build the tv stand." He shakes Bucky's shoulder a little bit. "We can attempt to conquer the indecipherable Swedish directions like men - and when we ultimately fail, we will still be men, if slightly less confident about using Allen wrenches."

"I - yeah, okay. I just – I just need to step out for a smoke." Bucky can feel Steve hovering at his elbow, but he avoids looking at him. He pulls out of Sam's grip and heads down the hall and back out onto the stoop.  

He hears the door open behind him a few minutes later, but he doesn't turn around. He knows it's Steve.  

“I thought you’d quit,” Steve says behind him.

Bucky turns to him, holding out his empty hand as proof. “I did.”

“Oh. Why did you? Quit, I mean. I just realized I never asked.”

Bucky shrugs. “Oh, well you and I started hanging out all the time - and I know you’ve got the asthma, and everything. Plus, you know - cancer, etcetera.”

“Cancer, etcetera,” Steve repeats, a little dumbly. He looks confused. “You quit for _me_?”

Bucky looks at him, standing on the stoop in his plaid flannel, his thin arms wrapped tightly around himself against the chill, without a jacket because he’d been in too much of a rush to put it on - in too much of a rush to come out here and talk to Bucky.

Bucky thinks that there’s very little he wouldn’t do, for Steve Rogers.

“Etcetera,” he says.

“Right. Uh, right.” The confusion is suddenly replaced by what Bucky has come to regard as Steve’s ‘let’s get down to business’ face. “Listen, Buck -” he starts.

Bucky looks down at his feet. “I don’t really want to talk about it Steve - I’m done freaking out now, we can let it lie.”

“I just - I just want you to know that you’re allowed, you know, to be hurt. I know there must be a lot of residual feelings -”

“There aren’t. I mean there are, of course there are - but I don’t -”

“I know it must be hard to - I know you guys have a great relationship, but it can’t be _easy_ , to -”

“I’m not still _in love_ with Nat. I mean obviously I love her, but. It’s just - it isn’t -”

“It’s alright if you are though,” Steve hurries on, in what is clearly meant to be a soothing tone. “It can take a long time to -”

"Don't project your Brock stuff on me," Bucky snaps, then becomes immediately contrite when he sees Steve's face harden. Bucky exhales forcefully and runs a hand over his face. "I'm sorry – you know how you feel - I just -"

Steve shakes his head, expression softening. "You just don’t want me assuming how _you_ feel. I get it – I'm sorry."

Bucky sighs. "You were just trying to be nice."

Steve shrugs. "Well, yeah – but you're allowed to be upset even if I wasn’t trying to upset you."  

And god, Steve’s just too good, he’s just too good a friend - too good a person. He’s too good and Bucky likes him too much and this whole conversation is making Bucky even _sadder,_ because if Steve isn’t still hung up on Brock why hasn't he –

"It's just -" Bucky starts, then pauses, unsure of how to put what he feels into words. "It's just - the doll arm thing," he blurts.

Steve blinks at him. "The doll-arm thing?"

"After – at the hospital, when I was in recovery.” Bucky shrugs his left shoulder. “Nat started bringing me little plastic left arms - you know, from like Barbies and action figures and stuff - just started leaving them for me on the bedside table, or in the pockets of my sweatpants. She just - she _knew_ , that I needed to, to make light of the whole thing, in some small way. That the whole thing was too heavy and I needed - she _knows_ me. She really, really knows me. And I know that was even after we’d ended the romantic stuff, but - _she gets me_ . And we do love each other. Why wasn't all that – why wasn't that _enough_?"  

Steve shakes his head. “I don’t know, Buck. But the fact that it didn't last forever doesn’t diminish its importance - just because it wasn’t forever doesn’t mean that it wasn’t enough."  

"That's not what you would've said back when we first met – twenty-year-old you would've argued that if it didn't last it must not have been 'real' love."

"Yeah, well, twenty-year-old me had a lot to learn about emotional complexity and the reality of relationships."  

"I think thirty-year-old me still has a lot to learn about emotional complexity and the reality of relationships," Bucky sighs.  

Steve smiles at him, soft and sweet. "That might be true. But I don't think there's anything wrong with that." He holds Bucky’s eye. “You’ve had a few really awful years, Buck. I just want you to know that it’s okay to be, you know, less than positive about it all, sometimes.”

Bucky’s frustration flares. “I know that - don’t you think I know that? I’m not some sort of upbeat robot -”

“I didn’t mean that like, generally - I just meant, you know, with me.” Steve rubs at the back of his neck, face flushing. Bucky deflates completely, watching him. “You can tell me anything, Buck. And you’re allowed the occasional freak out - I don’t think anything you’d freak out over would be irrational, for one thing, and it’s not like I would mind even if it was. I’m just, you know - I’m here for you. If you ever, ah, need me. Or what have you.” Steve toes at the little mound of snow that has gathered on the second step, eyes fixed on his boot.

A knot of emotion ties itself once more in Bucky’s windpipe. Steve might not be the most adept speechmaker in the world, and he might not know the internal workings of Bucky’s heart like the back of his hand, the way that Natasha does, but Bucky has never in his life had someone look him in the eye and say, simply and earnestly and out loud, ‘I’m here for you’ - not like Bucky didn’t already know it, but like it should be said, regardless if Bucky knew it or not.

Bucky thinks that Steve might be the best friend he’s ever had.

Bucky’s also never wanted to kiss someone so badly in his life, but he puts a pin in that aspect of it, for the moment.

Having Steve like this is more than enough to be going on with. For now.

\---

Bucky gets home to his apartment late, after dinner with Steve. He opens the door to find Nat perched cross-legged on the kitchen island in her pajamas. He knows without asking - or seeing the dirty bowl in the sink behind her - that she’s eaten the last of his Haagen-Dazs.

“I’d ask ‘how did you get in here,’ but I know all of your tricks. Also I’m just remembering that I gave you the spare key. Because of course I did.” He sighs, shuffling over so that he can lean against her, bury his face in her neck. “Why are you here?” he asks her, voice muffled in the soft flannel of her collar.

“Because I was worried about you,” she replies, petting down his head. “Also I missed you. I’ve gone to sleep in the same house as you for the past eight years - it’s strange to have you so far away.”

“You guys are two blocks from here.”

“Still.”

“I know.”

“So.”

“So?”

“So are you going to ask me, or what?”

Bucky sighs and pulls back a little, looking down at Nat’s lap, focusing on the little drawings of cats in sunglasses that make up the pattern on her pants. There’s no point in beating around the bush or pretending he doesn’t know what she means; there’s no pretense between them, there never really was.

“Were we -” he starts, then has to stop to swallow around the sudden tightness in his throat. “Were we - not enough?” He doesn’t ask ‘was I not enough’ - he isn’t strong enough to vocalize that one, yet.

“Of course we were enough, James. We still are, I like to think.”

“Then why…”

Nat shrugs. She forces him to meet her eye, her gaze clear and intent. “I’m not really sure. It wasn’t like there was anything missing, really. It just sort of - leveled out. And I’m greedy, I guess. We were enough, but I wanted - more. I wanted more. For both of us.”

“You aren’t greedy,” Bucky sighs. “And Wilson - he’s more?”

“Yes,” she says, honest. Nat is always honest with him, even if she knows it will hurt.

This doesn’t hurt. “Good. I’m really glad for you, Nat. That’s so good,” he tells her, hoping that she hears the truth of it in his own voice, knowing that she does.

She smiles at him, her happiness like a glowing nimbus around her. She’s impossibly beautiful under the awful florescent strip lighting of his tiny, cramped kitchen - she’s impossibly beautiful everywhere she goes.

“There’s more for you too, you know,” she says, running a hand through his hair.

There’s a confidence in her voice he wants to lean into - wishes he could believe in, himself. He leans into her touch instead.

“Mhmm,” he grunts, noncommittally. He has a brief mental image of Steve, standing on the stoop earlier tonight: his face hard with concern, his hands clenching in the over-long cuffs of his baggy sweater. Bucky pushes the thought away.

They’re quiet for a minute, just sort of leaning into each other and breathing, slow.

“So,” Bucky says, breaking the silence. “How much ‘more’ are we talking here, with Wilson - two inches? Three?”

Nat snorts, pulling her hand free from his hair so that she can use it to cuff him lightly upside the head. “You’re ridiculous.”

“You love me, though.”

She moves her hands to his cheeks, lightly kisses the tip of his nose. “I really, really do,” she says. Then she pokes at him, shoving him back far enough that she can shimmy down from her spot on the counter. “I have to go home, now.”

“Yeah, yeah - probably have to go finish christening every room with new-apartment-sex, huh?”

“Please, we finished with that before you and Steve managed to get that second set of boxes up the stairs. You two take like, seventy years to do anything.”

Bucky ignores her. “Hey, here’s a thought - you, me and Sam. _Threesome_.”

Nat rolls her eyes. “Right, let’s do that.”  

“What, we did it with Wade -”

“Listen, James, as entertaining as it would be to see you and Sam resolve your specifically antagonistic brand of sexual tension -"

"Right? It's palpable, isn't it -"

"But I think the certain emotional fallout wouldn't be worth the fun. It'd be too weird, this time."  

He watches her move towards the door, watches her crouch to lace up her combat boots before pulling on her fur-trimmed parka over the florescent pink pajama set. She tops the look off with an American-flag-knit cap that must belong to Sam.

“What, is the fact that I’m gunna pine for you indefinitely the problem? I’m willing to shelve that for a night, if you are,” he tells her with a wink, half-serious.

She turns to look at him, squinting a bit through her bangs, which the cap has pushed down into her eyes. “Indefinitely, huh? I doubt that.”

“Alright, well, for the rest of my life then.” He grins at her. “Is that finite-enough?”

“That’s not really what I meant,” she says, smiling, then opens the door and disappears through it. She closes it softly behind her, and Bucky is left in silence.

He wonders if she’s right - if there’s ‘more’ for him, waiting somewhere. Maybe somewhere nearby.

He wonders if he’ll be able to handle ‘more,’ if he ever does manage to get his hand on it.

Bucky hopes so, on both counts. He really, really does.

\---

The next afternoon Bucky flops down on Steve’s couch with a groan of pleasure. "Nat says that a me having a threesome with her and Sam would be weird, but I disagree. What do you think?"

Steve looks up from his drafting table and stares at Bucky, eyebrows furrowed in incredulity.  

Bucky raises an eyebrow at him. "What?"

Steve shakes his head slowly. "Sometimes you are so estranged from your own feelings I think you wouldn’t recognize your own guts in a lineup."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Steve sighs. "Nothing." He drops the pen he's holding into the box he keeps his drawing supplies in. "Hey, you coming to the party at Clint's on Thursday? I'm sure there will be plenty of single people there for you to put the moves on. People you don't have extremely complicated, ongoing emotional entanglements with, even."

"Sounds like a hoot and a half, but it’s the end of the month so I’ll probably be at the office late. Could stop by after, though," Bucky replies. Then he notices the way Steve is pinching the bridge of his nose, the tight way he's holding his shoulders. Bucky sits up. "Hey – you okay? You seem stressed."

Steve moves his hand to the back of his neck. Bucky wishes he could put his hand there. "Yeah, I'm fine. I find out tomorrow if one of our bigger clients chose my design submission  – I'm weirdly nervous about it, is all."  

Bucky nods, understanding. "Well that's a totally legit thing to be nervous about. But you're crazy talented, Steve - you'll get it, I'm absolutely positive. You’re just as good as that guy whose painting you made us stand in front of for an hour at the Whitney last week - you know, the one with all the green, and the ballerina.”

“Edward Hopper,” Steve informs him, his eyes going a little glazed. “Nobody uses green like Hopper,” Steve mutters, dazedly.

“My point is,” Bucky raises his voice, startling Steve out of his mini-trance, “that you’re great. And they’d be crazy not to choose you.”

"Thanks, Buck," Steve replies, voice low and quiet.  

They smile at each other for a few beats, until Bucky’s heart feels like it’s about to crawl out of his throat.

“So you don’t think it’s a good idea either, then? The threesome?” Bucky jokes, trying to dispel the sudden tension.

“Ughhhh,” Steve replies.

\---

**Today 9:23 PM**

Natty Ice: **You might want to come fetch Captain Wunderkind**

Natty Ice: **He's fucking masterful at beer pong but he can't hold his liquor for shit**  

Me: if hes so good at it why is he drinking so much?? dont you only drink if you lose?  

Natty Ice: **He keeps taking shots to 'celebrate his victory'**  

Natty Ice: **Which we all keep telling him is besides the point**  

Natty Ice: **But he will not be deterred**  

Me: has he started talking about the galapagos islands yet?  

Natty Ice: **No,** **why?**  

Me: favorite Drunk Steve conversation topic  

Natty Ice: **Oh wait, he just said 'do you guys want to hear a fun fact about iguanas'**  

Me: ding ding!

Me: alright ill swing by on my way back and take him home  

Natty Ice: **Okey dokey**

Natty Ice: **Sam and I would take him but his place is in the opposite direction of ours**  

Natty Ice: **And Sam isn't faring too well either**  

Me: too much victory?  

Natty Ice: **Not even close**

Natty Ice: **Worst throwing arm I've ever seen.**  

Natty Ice: **Plus he keeps insisting on going up against Clint**  

Me: ouch  

Me: okay im leaving here in ten!  

Natty Ice: ** <3 ** 

 

**Today 9:29 PM**

Natty Ice: **What in the hell is a 'dewlap'**  

Me: oh dont worry hell tell you  

Me: man that kid loves lizards

Me: be there soon  

 

Sam, Nat and Steve are already waiting on the stoop by the time Bucky arrives at Clint's place.  

Sam and Steve appear to have switched coats; Steve is practically swimming in Sam's navy-blue peacoat, the cuffs of the sleeves flapping over his hands, while Steve's fitted, shearling-lined jean jacket hits Sam around the midsection like a crop-top.  

The two of them are in the midst of what is obviously an amusing conversation, judging by the fact that they are both doubled over and cackling like hyenas. Bucky assumes it has something to do with how ridiculous they both look, until he hears Steve squeak out in a choked voice, "What about the _snails_ !" To which Sam replies " _I know,_ " before he starts laughing so hard he goes almost completely silent, tears streaking down his face.  

Bucky looks over to where Nat is standing, a few feet yards up the sidewalk, making sure to keep downwind of Steve while she smokes her cigarette. She winks at Bucky as she takes a drag.  

"Just what kind of liquor was at this party?" Bucky asks her, gesturing toward the Chuckle Twins, who are now leaning against one another and wheezing.  

"Not quite sure, actually – Thor brought it," she replies, dropping the butt on ground and crushing it under the toe of her combat boot.  

"Who's Thor?"

"Clint's awful roommate's brother. I think we should keep him and ditch the other."

"What's so bad about the other one?”

"Oh, not much. Just that he's the sort of self-important prick that makes me wish I was capable of telepathic castration."

"Ah. You know, I wouldn't rule that out just yet,” Bucky tells her. “You are very talented."

"You always did believe in me." Nat reaches forward and presses her cold thumb into the divot in Bucky's chin.

"The testicles in the sky are the limit for you, babe."

"Let's hope," she replies, grinning like a shark.  

"Bucky!”

Bucky turns to see Steve beaming up at him, his fair hair mussed and his cheeks reddened by either the alcohol or the cold. Bucky’s brain goes fuzzy around the edges, just looking at him.

“Bucky!” Steve repeats, the sheer joy in his face making Bucky’s stomach swoop with gladness. “Look guys, my ride is here! I mean, I _wish_ – you know, like I wish I could ride -" Steve's brow briefly furrows in concentration before he drops it in a shrug. "Damn, I'm not as good at the dirty jokes as you are, Buck."

Bucky laughs. "It's a rare and formidable skill, Stevie. C'mon, let's get you home."

Nat and Bucky then spend five minutes wrestling Steve and Sam back into their proper coats, and an additional ten waiting for the two of them to stop hugging long enough to be towed off to their respective homes.  

"I love you so much, dude," Sam mutters as he gives Steve one last squeeze.  

"Oh man, I love you too, Sam. _Sam_ . You're just the best guy, ya know? You're _so_ the best," Steve mumbles, voice muffled in the crook of Sam's neck.  

"Call me tomorrow."  

"I will, I promise."  

Nat shakes her head at them, fondness etched all over her face. "Geesh, you'd think one of you was shipping out – you'll see each other in a few days, I'm positive."

Bucky and Steve head west, walking slowly - Steve weaving only slightly - side by side.

Bucky can’t stop looking at Steve, marveling at the way he moves. Alcohol always seems to make Steve loosen the boundaries of his body, and seeing him as relaxed as he clearly is now impresses upon Bucky just how carefully Steve holds himself a any other given moment. This loosening effect should render Steve awkward and graceless, by all counts, but he never seems to abandon his poise. He just becomes - effusive with it, gesticulating and elastic-limbed. It makes Bucky want to stare at him and never stop.

"I was gunna call an ooo, an oob – you know, one of those things,” Steve is saying. “But I think there's something wrong with my phone." Steve peers down at his phone screen, blinking a little owlishly.

Bucky gently takes it from him. "Yeah, you shut it off."

"Oh. Well let's use yours then. Call a burr-burr, the thingy - _you_ know."

"Nah, we don’t need an Uber – there's the bus right there! C'mon, you love the bus."

Steve looks up at Bucky, wide eyes starting to go a little teary. "I do," he says, rapturous, and presses a hand against his chest. "I do love the bus."  

"Alright then, let's go." Bucky corrals Steve onto the bus, half-listening to Steve’s rapturous description of the newcomer, Thor, while he hands over their fare and steers Steve into a seat.

"He's really smart and he's just so sweet, ya know?” Steve shakes his head, plopping down into a seat with a thump. “Plus, I'd _totally_ suck his dick," he adds, vehement, then stops, his eyes going wide as he blinks up at Bucky. "Oh m'god, did I say that out loud?"

Bucky can't help but giggle at him. "Yeah, buddy, you did."

"Oh nooooooo,” Steve slurs. “And in front of a bunch of nuns too.” He gestures to the poster for the Bronx Zoo that’s on the wall across the aisle from them - one that features a large photograph of the penguin enclosure - before burying his face in his hands.  

Bucky laughs again. "I hate to burst your Catholic-upbringing-fear-bubble, but that's just a picture of some penguins, Stevie."

"Oh.” Steve slumps back, dropping his hands. “Well that's not good then, either. Talking like that in front of them – especially penguins, they're so ad-adorable and cool – heh get it? 'Cool'? 'Cause of Antarctica -" He pauses to hiccup. "God, I'm so embarrassed." He rubs a hand down his face and then waves it haphazardly in Bucky's direction. "But look who I'm talkin' to – you never get embarrassed sayin' shit like that – no matter what-" Another hiccup. "No matter what kind of bird might be listening."  

"Mhmmm – though I have it on good authority that pigeons love a good dirty limerick,” Bucky tells him. Then he pauses, considering; as dubious as it might be to probe a drunk friend for information, Bucky has to ask, "Do you get embarrassed when I do it?"

"Occasionally." Steve cracks one eye and fixes Bucky with a surprisingly sober glare of disapproval. Then he closes it and tucks his face against Bucky's shoulder and yawns. "Mostly you make me laugh."

Bucky smiles, glad, and tucks his arm around Steve to hold him steady. He ignores the little burst of happiness that diffuses through his chest when Steve leans into the touch. "You didn't like it when we first met," he feels compelled to add.  

Steve sighs and nuzzles against Bucky's shoulder. "I thought you were making fun of me," he says.

"Oh." Bucky pauses rubbing Steve's shoulder in his surprise. "I wasn't."

"Don' stop, tha' feels good," Steve mumbles. "Yeah, that was before I knew that the only person you ever make fun of is yourself." He sighs again, deeply. "You're a nice person, Buck. And I'm really glad 'bout that – it would suck to be in love with a jerk."

Bucky freezes. Steve's words replay themselves over and over in his head, resonant and echoing as the toll of a bell.  

He catches sight of their reflection in the dark glass of the bus window opposite; Steve curled up into Bucky's side, this knobbly knees thrown over Bucky's lap, the fluorescent lighting shining off his fair hair. Bucky meets his own eyes in the reflection, wide and unblinking.

His heart lurches against his ribcage. Did Steve really just -

Yes, yes he did.

Bucky isn’t sure what to do, aside from ignoring his immediate impulse, which is to be all ‘THANK GOD, I LOVE YOU TOO’ - and isn’t that a surprise? Bucky _loves_ Steve. He _loves_ him. The thought hits Bucky like a truck.

On second thought, the realization isn’t surprising at all - of _course_ Bucky loves him. Sure he’s been desperate to downplay it as a ‘crush’ for months, but hearing Steve _say_ the word - hearing Steve _reciprocate_ \- makes denial fly right off Bucky’s radar.

Of course it’s possible Steve meant friendly love, Bucky knows, but even the possibility that he meant _love_ love makes Bucky chest feel impossibly light and full - like he might float away with the joy of it.

Bucky realizes he has to tell Steve about his own feelings - not _now_ obviously, with Steve drunk as a frat-boy-skunk and snoring lightly against Bucky’s shoulder, but soon. His heart thumps loudly in his ears at the thought.

He has to tell him.

Bucky doesn’t really have any excuses not to, anymore, does he?

\---

It turns out that in the mission to confess one’s love for one’s best friend, Bucky is capable of finding many, many excuses. Excuses like ‘I’m working a lot this week’ or “It’s raining today’ or ‘Steve looks so cute right now that I’m finding it difficult to speak English at all.’

It isn’t so bad, all in all. Aside from those moments when looking at Steve or listening to Steve or even just _thinking_ about Steve makes his heart clog up his throat like Fuzzy Lentil with a hairball - except less disgusting and more like, romantic and sensitive. Bucky’s dealing with it, in any case.

Today the excuse he is employing in his quest to deal is ‘I invited everyone over so Steve and I don’t have a chance to be alone together;’ it’s Friday night and Steve, Scott, Sam and Bucky are lounging in the cramped living room area of Bucky’s horrible studio, drinking beers and playing Halo.

A brisk knock at the door forces Bucky to hand over his controller to Sam. “Don’t you dare lose my lead, Wilson.”

Bucky opens the door to find Clint standing on the threshold. He is in obvious distress, his face flushed and his hands knotted together in front of him. "I think Loki stole Lucky Jr.," he blurts, in lieu of 'hello.'  

"That rat fink _bastard,"_ Bucky replies immediately. Then, "Who is Lucky Junior?"

"Lucky's stuffed dog toy – looks just like him. He's had it since he was a puppy and he can't sleep without it." Clint pushes past Bucky and drops down onto the couch, his face in his hands. "Loki got all pissed when I said I was moving out to live with Darcy – God knows why, he always seemed to hate me _so much_ , you'd think he would be glad I wanted out – but he's been awful and I've been trying to move my stuff as quickly as possible. But he obviously got fed up. 'cause this afternoon I went by to get the last of my boxes and he'd just stacked them in the hallway and changed the locks. But Lucky Junior was missing from the top box – I know he was in there because I only packed that box this morning."

Sam puts down the controller and turns to him. “Can’t you just ask him to give it back? We can go with you, if you think things might get confrontational.”

Clint shakes his head, his hearing aids reflecting the dim light in the room as he shifts. "He's probably gone already – he goes away every weekend for his job, whatever it is.”

"Why do you think Loki took it?" Steve asks, coming to sit on the arm of the sofa, next to Clint’s elbow.

"He knows what it is – he's hidden it to be a jerk before. And he was really angry at me for leaving. He said he was 'glad to be getting rid of the slobbering, hairy mutt and the canine too' - who the fuck talks to someone like that? To their _face_?  

"I have no idea," Bucky tells him, shaking his head. "And who the fuck says 'canine' like that – is that an Icelandic thing?"  

"I think it’s a 'rude douchebag who scripts his insults in advance' thing," Scott puts in, leaning over the back of the couch to pat Clint on the shoulder.  

"Alright, let's think of a plan," Steve announces to the room at large, his face stern and a business-like look in his eye. Bucky wants to kiss him so badly it’s actually a physical ache, a pit in his stomach. He takes another swig of his beer to quell the feeling, almost choking on it when Steve turns and points at him, a knowing glint in his eye. “First thing's first – Buck, say whatever horrible pun you've thought of now. Get it over with so we can all move on."

Bucky blinks at him. "I don't have a -"

"Just say it."

"Grand Theft Doggo," Bucky mumbles.  

"Okay, next - Clint, what’s the situation like at Loki’s building? Is there a fire escape leading to any of the apartment’s windows?”

“Oh no way,” Bucky protests, standing up. “Steve we are _not_ breaking and entering for a freakin’ stuffed animal.”

“Lucky Junior,” Steve corrects him, fully serious, and Bucky can tell he’s already lost the argument. “Clint?”

“Yeah - yeah there’s a fire escape, passes by the living room window,” Clint responds, nodding, a hopeful look brightening his face. “I think it’s probably sound - never seen anybody on it, though.”

“Alright, great.” Steve nods back, ignoring the question of safety, as per usual. Bucky groans at him, internally. Steve carries on, undeterred, “Okay - Bucky you can come with me up to the apartment to look around, Sam -”

“So you’re roping me into this?” Bucky interrupts, even though his stomach swoops with pleasure at Steve’s easy assumption that Bucky’d follow him wherever, felony or no. Even though - “You know I probably can’t climb up a fire escape, ah, with one arm.”

“Oh, right,” Steve says, his disappointment obvious, causing Bucky’s stomach to give another happy twist. “Scott you wanna come with?”

Scott’s eyes are fixed on the television screen, controller back in his hands. “This is the lamest plan I’ve ever heard.”

“So that’s a yes?”

“Obviously.”

“Great - Sam you’ll be lookout. We should have a signal -”

Sam practically bounces on his feet. "Oh, we could pick a birdcall! Maybe a Hermit Thrush - or no a Black Crested Warbler!”

Steve squints at him. "What's a Black Crested Warbler?"

"It's not my fault you don't keep up with my blog, Steven."  

“Whatever - c’mon let’s get a move on. Here, Buck."

Bucky looks down at what Steve is offering him. "A baseball cap. Neato."

"No, Buck - _incog-_ neato," Steve says, deadpan, before breaking into a wide grin.

Bucky snorts. "Nice one. But for real, this is just a hat. A hat is not a disguise, Steve."

Steve shrugs, waving the cap back and forth until Bucky takes it. "A hat is plenty," he counters, tugging on his own beanie.  

"Alright, fine," Bucky sighs. "You're the Chief Strategist. I'm just a person with eyes who can absolutely recognize people even after they put on simplistic headgear."  

"You know I could rectify that for you," Steve grumbles, feinting like he's about to poke Bucky's eyes out with the fingers of his right hand.  

Bucky drops the hat to grab at Steve's arm, but Steve swipes the cap off the floor with his free hand and starts trying to wrestle it onto Bucky's head, fumbling and giggling.  

"This is painful," Bucky hears Sam's voice from somewhere behind him.

He and Steve cease tussling and turn to face Sam, Bucky's vision almost completely obscured by his mussed hair and the lopsided brim of the hat.  

"What is?" Steve asks, giving one final tug on a hank of Bucky's hair.  

"Nothing," Sam responds, shaking his head. "Absolutely fuckin' nothing."  

"Alright then." Steve glances back at Bucky and rolls his eyes, prompting Sam to step forward and cuff him lightly over the back of the head. "Ow! C'mon you bunch of jerks, let's get a move on."

Scott, now donning a beat-up old trapper hat, appears at Bucky’s elbow. "Just to be clear – we are talking about like, a plushie, not a taxidermy dog, right? 'Cause that shit freaks me out."

"The word plushie? Me too."

"No – well yeah, a bit – but I meant the dead animal thing. If that's Lucky Jr. I’m not sure I want to touch him.”

“It’s a fabric dog, alright,” Clint cuts in from across the room, clearly having read their lips from afar.

“Okay, man, just checking,” Scott calls to him, before turning back to Bucky and saying, in a low voice, “I mean, like, you never know with Clint.”  

“I saw that, too, Lang,” Clint shouts again.

The five of them cluster around the door, pulling on their shoes and jackets, before a light knock from the other side causes them all to pause.  

Steve, wearing a slightly confused frown, steps forward to pull open the door, revealing Nat, standing on the threshold in her leather bomber jacket, a shopping bag hung from the crook of one arm.  

"What's shakin', boys? I brought chips and salsa," she greets them, pushing past Steve into the apartment. She walks straight to Clint, reaches into the shopping bag, and produces a bedraggled, yellow stuffed dog the size of a deflated football.  

Clint grabs at the dog, wide-eyed. "What - how -" he stammers, staring at Nat in awe.  

Nat simply leans up and kisses Clint softly on the cheek before swiveling on her heels and heading for the kitchen.  

"Steve," she calls back over her shoulder, "tell me you have a few of those hard ciders left - I'm dying."  

Steve stares after her, the frown still on his face. Bucky reaches over and plucks the beanie off his head.  

"My girl didn't even need a hat," Bucky drawls, smug.  

\---

The evening devolves from there, all of them getting a little tipsy and the environment getting a little raucous as Nat starts to obliterate each of them in turn at Call of Duty.

Bucky drinks a little more heavily than he intended, all the while trying to avoid sitting too close to Steve. He fails pretty hard at this - gravitating towards Steve like there’s some sort of magnetism pulling them together - and by the end of the night it’s just him and Steve left, sitting side by side on the couch, thighs and shoulders pressed tightly together.

Bucky turns closer into Steve’s side, saying something that he forgets before the sentence is even out of his mouth but knowing that whatever it was was meant to make Steve laugh - and Steve _does_ laugh, hand pressed to his chest like he’s trying to hold his joy tight against him, or maybe in some sort of asthma-sufferers habit, Bucky doesn’t know.

What he does know is that Steve is beautiful, so beautiful that Bucky can feel himself approaching the verge of doing Something Stupid, like maybe leaning in for a kiss - and it takes Bucky a moment to realize that he _is_ leaning in, but it turns out it’s only to puke all over his shoes.

Steve cleans him up and holds back his hair during round two, which definitely isn’t as nice as any kisses would have been, but it still makes Bucky feel tingly and too big for his skin. Which might just be the cold sweat from vomiting, but Bucky’s pretty sure that wouldn’t feel as nice as this.

What Bucky is sure of is that he loves Steve - really, really, truly loves Steve. Loves Steve in a way that makes him feel stupid for not realizing it sooner, in a way that makes him feel stupid for not saying it, to Steve, at every available moment.

He _loves_ Steve. He’s sure of it.

He’s also sure that he hates it when Steve leaves; he want Steve to stay with him, in his bed, every night, all the time.

Bucky has to tell him.

\---

Bucky knocks on Steve’s door the next morning around eight.

"What time is it?" Steve greets him.

Bucky holds up the slightly grease-stained paper bag he's carrying. "Early enough that I was able to swing by the hipster bakery two blocks over for chocolate-covered-bacon rugelach."

Steve eyes the bag dubiously. "That's too early."

"Well you know what they say, the early bird gets the overpriced, weirdly trendy, culturally tone-deaf baked goods."

Steve shrugs. "I do need something to go with my coffee. C'mon in." He walks toward the kitchen, leaving Bucky to follow. "What inspired the crack of dawn pastry foraging? I'd've thought you'd be in bed with your hangover until at least noon."

"Woke up at five and couldn't get back to sleep. Hangover is minimal, thanks to you – consider this an offering of appreciation for your generous assistance last night." Bucky drops the fragrant paper bag on the counter.  

"It was no problem – you know I'm happy to shepherd you through the valley of bad decisions, Buck. You do the same for me," Steve says, his back turned to Bucky as he reaches up to grab a second mug from the cupboard.  

Bucky's responding quip dies on his lips as Steve turns around and hands him the mug.  

Steve's wearing his blue sweater today, the one that brings out the color of his eyes to an almost startling degree, and the combination of that with the soft morning light and Steve's soft, sleepy expression is distracting enough to make Bucky rethink the strength of his hangover.  

The sight of him makes Bucky want to say something stupid, like "That sweater really brings out the color of your eyes," or potentially even "I love you so much it makes my brain go fuzzy if I think about you too hard."  

It's unfortunate, really. Bucky hates that sweater. He wants to buy Steve one for every day of the week.  

Instead he takes a sip of his coffee and quietly contemplates what he'd like to do today that isn't 'kiss Steve to within an inch of his life for several hours and then maybe share a sandwich.' It's a challenging train of thought, and he's glad Steve never seems to mind sitting in silence.  

They quietly share the bag of rugelach, Bucky trying to work up the courage to be all ‘Hey I love you, what do you say to the idea of us dating forever?’

He never quites makes it.

\---

A week later, Bucky’s hanging out at home when his phone rings. He looks at the call screen in incredulity as he answers. It’s -

“Tony?”

“Yo, Buck Rogers? How’s it hanging?” Tony greets him.

“A little to the east, how about you?”

“Terrific. I told you to call me at the Halloween shindig, but I still haven’t heard from you - what gives?”

“Oh shit, I just totally forgot - sorry man. What’s up?”

“Not much - I just have a life-changing proposal for you to consider, that’s all.”

Bucky snorts. “Proposal, huh? A little hasty - we haven’t even been on a date

“As if I need to make offers toward someone so clearly off the market - there’s plenty of singles vying for my expert attentions, for one thing, and I’m not about to invade Cap’s territory, for another. No, this is about your arm.”

Bucky’s mind reels. “What about my arm?”

“Did your husband ever tell you about the sort of projects my foundation is working on?”

Bucky ignores the husband comment, even though it makes something sing in his heart, in favor of keeping the conversation moving. “Something about robots?”

“Fucking - ‘something about robots.’ Yes, something about robots! Something about the most high tech robotics laboratory in the world. Tell me - have you heard about Dr. Banner and I’s research with neural grafting and vibranium prosthetics?”

“Ah, no,” Bucky replies.

“Well buckle up, Buck-O. You’re about to.”

\---

Bucky sits on the couch, flipping his cellphone over and over again in his hand. He's torn between wanting to call Steve to talk though the unsettling combination of fear and excitement that's roiling around in his chest, and keeping the information to himself as a way to avoid getting his own, or anyone else's, hopes up.  

An arm. Tony Stark is offering him _an arm_ . Specifically, Tony Stark is offering Bucky a slot in the research trial for a state-of-the-art, practically sci-fi prosthetic arm that’s made out of some exceptionally fancy metal and would be literally hardwired _into his brain_ . And Bucky had said _yes_. He has a consult with the neurosurgeon for testing first thing in the morning.

He's still contemplating whether or not to call Steve when he hears a knock on the front door. He opens it to find Steve himself, looking tense and slightly dazed.  

"Hey," Bucky greets him, puzzled. It's not out of the ordinary for Steve to show up unannounced, but seeing him this visibly frazzled is a rarity in itself.

Steve says nothing, pushing past Bucky into the small living room with a dead-eyed look that makes Bucky instantly concerned.

Steve walks over to the bookshelf under the window, still unspeaking and with a little crease between his brows that Bucky wants to smooth out with his thumb. Steve picks up Bucky's signed Carl Erskine baseball and then puts it back down, eyes fixed on something outside the window.  

"You know you don't have to white-knuckle it, whatever it is,” Bucky tells him. “Hey, we could go out and bloody-knuckle it, if you want – find some dickbags to punch? I know how much you like that."

"I don't _like_ punching people – sometimes it just has to be done," Steve sighs.  

“Alright, so - what do you want to -”

“I ran into Brock.”

Bucky’s stomach gives an odd little flop. “Oh?”

“Yeah - at the bookstore. He was with a guy - his boyfriend, he said.”

“Oh.” Steve still isn’t looking at him, and it’s starting to make Bucky nervous.

“They were - they were _holding hands_ ,” Steve says, voice slightly strangled. Bucky’s heart jumps again. “I wasn’t - I wasn’t _jealous_ . It’s just that - he never did that, with me. We _never_ did that. Even after years together - he never -” Steve stops, pressing a hand briefly over his mouth. “ _Fuck_. I’m sorry, I’m just sort of freaking out right now and I don’t know why - no, no I know exactly why.” Steve wanders over to the couch and drops down onto it, head in his hands.

Bucky, unsure of exactly what to do, sits next to him. He’s never seen Steve so upset.

“I know he needed time, you know,” Steve continues, dropping his hands to look at Bucky. “I know that coming out and being comfortable with who you are is a really personal, convoluted thing and it isn’t anyone’s place to rush anyone else, but - fuck!” He shouts. “I’m just going to say the thing you aren’t supposed to say, alright? It sucks that it wasn’t _me_ \- that I wasn’t the one to, to help him get to that place, that I _failed_ to help him get to that place -”

“Steve - it wasn’t your failure, he just needed -”

“I know - fuck, I know. I’m being selfish and self-centered. I know I’m not supposed to say - but, fuck, I can’t help it, right now.”

Bucky clenches his fist in the fabric of the couch to stop himself from reaching for Steve. “That’s okay, Steve. It’s just me here - you can say whatever you want.”

Steve stands, and Bucky hastens to stand with him.

Steve turns to face the window again. “It’s just - when we ended things. It was so easy, _so easy_ for him to just cut me out of his life - I lifted right out. And I know it’s because he never really made room for me, to begin with. It was always temporary, in his mind. And maybe that’s just because he never felt truly comfortable, with the idea of being with a man, at the time - maybe it wasn’t _personal_ , but -”

Steve turns to him then, and his eyes are glazed over with tears. The look on his face makes Bucky’s heart drop straight to his feet, makes him want to pull Steve to him and never let go. “Buck, what if -” he says, voice breaking. “What if - what if all those years it wasn’t that he didn’t want to be seen with a guy - what if it’s that he just didn’t want to be seen with _me_?”

Bucky does reach for him then, completely unable to help himself. He squeezes Steve’s shoulder with his right hand, hard. It’s unfathomable to Bucky, the idea that someone would be - embarrassed, to have this incredible person by their side. Hell, if Bucky ever got the chance, he’s sure he’d never shut up about it.

“Not possible,” he blurts, fully sincere.

Steve stares at him for a few beats, face gone blank. Then something shifts in his expression, and before Bucky knows what is happening, Steve is leaning forward and -

\---

Kissing him. Steve is kissing him.

Steve just hadn’t been able to help it - Bucky had been standing there, all supportive and handsome and wonderful, and then he’d said ‘not possible,’ like he really couldn’t believe it - like he could barely register the possibility that someone would be less than proud to date Steve, the look in his eyes so genuinely mystified that Steve hadn’t been able to resist leaning in and -

Steve pulls back from the kiss, feeling oddly dazed and more than a little panicked. Bucky blinks at him.

“Sorry I - I just -” Steve tries, unable to finish the thought, staring at Bucky’s soft, warm mouth. “Sorry, I should have at least asked first, instead of just -”

“No! No it’s alright. But - are you sure you want to - “

“Yeah, yes,” Steve says, helpless to say anything else. The thought of anything except Bucky, Bucky, Bucky has been wiped from his mind. “Yes, I want - I mean, if _you_ want to I -”

Bucky cuts him off by leaning in and kissing him soundly, and more than a little desperately. Steve clutches at his shoulders, kissing him back in kind.

It’s the sort of kiss that Steve can feel all the way down to his toes. Hell, it’s the sort of kiss that makes Steve forget he even has feet - he sags against Bucky’s chest, feeling suddenly boneless and off-balance.

Somewhere in the back of Steve’s mind he registers that they should maybe talk about this, about _them_ , first, but the thought vanishes the instant Bucky makes a low noise against his mouth and slips his hand inside Steve’s shirt, his palm hot and close on the small of Steve’s back.

After that neither of them does much talking at all, for the rest of the night.

\---

Bucky wakes up hot and sweaty and a little sore. He also wakes up happy, incandescently so - going from sleep-dazed to exuberant in the split second it takes him to recognize the solid, warm weight on his chest, all pointy-elbows and mussed blond hair tucked up hard under Bucky’s chin.

Bucky stretches his legs a little, testing the feeling of the body pressed against his, and the movement rouses Steve. He groans and rolls away from Bucky slightly, a situation that is much more comfortable but vastly less preferable. Bucky tries not to whimper and grab at him.

Steve doesn’t go far, though; they end up sharing the pillow, just sort of staring at each other with identical dazed expressions in the soft, early light coming in through Bucky’s curtains. After a minute of blinking at each other, the corner of Steve’s mouth curls up, sweet and slow, and he smiles shyly into Bucky’s face. Bucky smiles back and tries to remember how to breathe normally.

“Hey,” Steve says, voice groggy and gravelly and deep, in a way that makes heat roll in a wave down Bucky’s spine, cresting at the juncture of his hips.

He opens his mouth to say - something, but before his brain can manage a thought the alarm on his phone goes off, making it vibrate across the surface of his bedside table.

“Shit,” he swears, wriggling around to grab the phone and turn the alarm off. Looking at the clock as he does so, he can’t help but swear again, “Shit.” He and Steve must have slept through the first two alarms - if Bucky doesn’t get up now he’s going to be late for his appointment with Tony.

He racks his brain for an explanation to give Steve, but he can’t think of anything concise enough for the time frame. What is he going to say, anyway - ‘Thanks for the mind-blowing night, babe, but I gotta go see a man about an arm’? He wants to tell Steve the full story, but at this rate he isn’t sure he has long enough to even get fully dressed. Besides, his nerves are skyrocketing for some reason, and he’s not sure that saying the words out loud is going to help.

The whole thing - Steve, the arm, the time crunch, _Steve_ \- is so overwhelming that only response he seems to be managing is to stumble gracelessly out of the bed and start pulling on his sweatpants in a rush.

It’s not the most poised reaction Bucky’s ever had, but it’ll have to do.

Steve sits up, blinking at Bucky as he struggles to get his sweater pulled on in the right direction. “Buck, what - where are you going?” he asks, voice still creaky with sleep, and Bucky’s heart turns over.

“I gotta go,” Bucky blurts in response, barely trusting himself to look at Steve full-on - Steve in his bed, Steve half-naked in his sheets, Steve in his room, in his home, in his arms - Steve, with his sex-mussed hair and his sleepy eyes and his giant heart that Bucky loves - loves, loves, _loves_ in an unrelenting, consuming way that practically pulls the air from his lungs.

If Bucky stops to really look at him, he knows he’ll never stop. Which would, you know, be really inconvenient in terms of making his appointment.

“Oh,” Steve mumbles, voice gone small, and Bucky has no choice but to pause in the middle of pulling on his boots and glance up at him.

“Stay,” he implores Steve. “You should stay - I’m coming right back, I just have to - please stay.”

Steve smiles at him, weakly. “I can’t - I’ve got to go to work.”  
“Oh shit, that’s right - okay, I’ll come by later! You still at the place on Dean Street?”

“Ah, yeah. Yeah.”

“Okay great - I - I’ll see you later, okay?” Bucky tells him wishing that he could reach out, could bend down and kiss him.

But if just looking at Steve threatens to interfere with Bucky’s ability to walk away, touching him would absolutely be the nail in the coffin. And as desperately and Bucky wants to grab Steve and kiss that flustered expression off his face, he also really wants to go and inquire about the possibility of getting his goddamn missing limb reattached.  

Bucky’s anxiety is still escalating, too - to the point where he’s suddenly desperate to get out onto the street by himself, get some space to think about all of this. It’s that compulsion, on top of all the others, that finally decides him.

“I’ve got to go,” he says again, moving for the door. He looks back at Steve one last time before he reaches the hallway, offering him the biggest, brightest, most promising smile he can muster. “I’ll see you later,” he avows, taking in a final sight of Steve’s wide-eyed, bewildered face. Then he turns to leave.

\---

Steve calls Sam the second Bucky is out the door.

“Bucky and I had sex,” he blurts, as soon as he hears Sam pick up.  

“ _Finally_ . Watching the two of you not make out was excruciating - almost more so than watching Thor and Jane _actually_ make out, and you know how they are with the tongues.”

“What?”

Sam’s voice goes suddenly muffled and Steve can tell he’s pulled the phone away from his face. “Tasha!” Steve hears him shout. “You owe me twenty bucks! Steve’s on the phone.”

Steve makes out an indistinct voice that must be Natasha, replying.

“Yeah, last night,” Sam shouts back in response, then he puts the receiver back to his ear, voice coming in clear once more. “Thanks, man, I knew I could count on you to win me that bet.”

“You bet on me and Bucky having sex?!” Steve shouts, stumbling as he tries to get his left foot into the leg of his jeans.

“No, that was too much of a sure thing - I bet you’d be the first to freak out about it, after. That’s what you are doing, right? Freaking out?”

“Yes I’m freaking out! And I can’t _believe_ you -” Steve is cut off by more incoherent shouting from Nat on the other end of the line.

“I don’t care!” Sam calls back to her. “I still won!”

“You suck,” Steve huffs. Standing up fully, he realizes he’s put his jeans on backwards. He throws himself back down on the bed and starts pulling them back off.

“Sorry, man - if it helps I’ll buy you breakfast with my winnings. Want to meet at the bagel place? Nat’s on the phone with Bucky now and she’ll probably be a while. I need to pop out for some grub, I’m starving.”

Steve’s stomach drops another few inches. “Bucky’s on the phone with Nat? Fuck - is he freaking out too?”

“Do you want him to be? Nah, he probably called so that he and Nat can verbally high-five about it, or whatever - that boy’s had a heart-on for you for a _long_ time.”

“That’s not - he - that’s not how it - it was just a hookup, Sam. You know how he is.”

Sam pauses for a beat before replying. “Well I know how he has behaved with certain people in the past - people who seemed to have had exactly the same expectations for the experience as Bucky had, I might add - but I don’t think that really holds any bearing for how he might behave with _you_.”

“I don’t know that he feels any differently about me than he did for any of them. I mean, given how he just ran out of his own apartment this morning. Like he just couldn’t wait to - to -”

“I think the person who knows best how Bucky feels is Bucky - did you try talking to him about it? Who am I kidding, of course you didn’t.” Sam sighs, the connection between them crackling as he exhales. “Listen, Steve, I’m not a therapist - I mean I _am_ , but I’m not _your_ therapist - so I’m just going to leave you with some standard colloquial advice involving the word ‘assume,’ and encourage you to just talk it out. I have to go check in with my fiance - see what she wants on her bagel.”

“Yeah - yeah okay,” Steve agrees, then, “Wait, what? _Fiance_?”

“Oh, yeah,” Sam says, all fake-casual, the smile in his voice ringing clear down the line. “Nat and I got engaged last night.”

“Oh.” Steve mind flashes to the look on Bucky’s face when he’d run out of Sam and Nat’s apartment, that day, the hurt and guilt in his eyes. “Does - does Bucky know?”

“Man, the first thing you think of is _his_ reaction? That’s the first thing you got to say?”

Steve slaps his free hand against his forehead. “Oh shit - I’m so sorry, Sam. I’m the worst friend. Jesus - congratulations. I’m really, really happy for you. God, I’m sorry - I’m just so weirded out right now -”

“Well, I did put money on your romantic life, so I suppose I’m not the greatest friend either. You _will_ owe me, though.”

“Anything - anything you want,” Steve swears. He closes Bucky’s front door behind him as he leaves, making sure he hears the lock click.  

“I would like your everlasting love and devotion. And maybe a pina colada or two, next trivia night.”

“Deal. God, I’m sorry - again.”

When Steve passes by the mirrored window in the lobby he notices that his fly is hanging open. As he goes to fix it he also notices that he’s managed to accidentally put on a pair of Bucky’s underwear instead of his own. He barely manages to suppress a groan; today is _not_ off to a good start.

“I forgive you,” Sam is saying. “You’ve had an emotional morning, I get it. Probably haven’t even had your cornflakes yet - and I bet you need ‘em too, after the night of long-awaited love making.”

“How can you be the best and the worst at the same time? I love you. Congratulations, again.”

“Thanks, Steve. Love you too. Just talk to Barnes, alright?”

Steve sighs, feeling his gut twist in apprehension. He fiddles with the drawstring of his sweatshirt as he walks. “I’m just going to say it can’t happen again.”

Steve’s already running over what he is going to say in his mind: he knows he’ll need to be serious, but not too serious – firm enough to impress that it can’t happen again, but not so vehemently that Bucky will know just how badly he's freaking out about the whole thing. He doesn’t want Bucky to assume that he’s done anything wrong; the mistake was all on Steve, after all.

Steve shouldn’t have given into his feelings like that, even if Bucky was - responsive. Steve quickly pushed aside that train of thought. It’s a moot point, anyhow; he and Bucky have rarely seen eye-to-eye when it comes to romantic relationships in general. Steve’s just going to have to make it clear that he’d rather not start something so fraught with potential for mixed expectations.

“Aaaaand he’s off like a shot. Why do I even bother? For a foolhardy idiot you can be _such_ a coward, sometimes, Steve.”

Steve bristles, his stomach shrinking in shame. “It’s not cowardice, it’s self-preservation.”

“Preservation from happiness, maybe.”

Steve thinks of Brock, thinks of all those years they spent together, but never quite on the same page. He thinks about how it felt at the end, knowing that he’d been asking for too much - asking for Brock to be something he wasn’t, to do something he wasn’t comfortable doing.

Steve refuses to do that to Bucky, refuses to foist his own lofty romantic expectations off on another person again. Steve knows that he is the one who set his relationship with Brock up to fail, and he can’t lose Bucky the same way. He just _can’t_.

“I don’t know Sam. I really don’t know.”

\---

By the time he hits the end of his block Bucky’s ‘get some space to process this on your own’ compulsion has been replaced by a ‘call Nat immediately’ compulsion so strong that he almost fumbles the phone in his haste to dial.

“Oh my god, Nat,” he blurts, as soon as she’s answered.

“I know - Sam’s on the phone with Steve,” she replies, before shouting something incoherent to someone on her end of the line. “You owe me twenty bucks,” she grumbles, coming back to him.

“Fine, okay. Steve is on the phone with Sam? Oh my god. Nat - I love him.”

“Duh,” Nat scoffs. “I know that too - _everyone_ knows that. I think the guy that works at the corner bodega knows that.”

“Oh. Okay, alright. Do you think _Steve_ knows?”

“What, you didn’t tell him that last night?”

“Ah, we didn’t, um, get around to talking much.”

“ _Nice_.”

“I _know_. Oh my god, do you think he does know?”

“Well, I was about to say ‘he’d have to be the most oblivious, blind idiot alive’ but this _is_ Rogers we’re talking about - he does have weird blind spots when it comes to his self-worth, and I know the prescription on his glasses is pretty high,” Nat jokes.  

“Don’t be cute. Naaaaaaaaat - what do I do?”

“You just tell him, you idiot. _Explicitly_ \- with _words_ \- to his _face_. That’s all.”

“God. You’re totally right. I’ll do it today. Okay, non-problem solved! Holy shit - I’m freaking out. Sorry if - sorry if this is weird for you. Ya know, talking about it.”

Nat snorts into the phone. “James, a week ago you were put out that I put a kibosh on you having a threesome with me and my fiance, but you think _this_ is weird for me?”

“Yeah, well that was just about sex - love stuff is, you know, different.”

“That’s true.”

Bucky stops short in the middle of the crosswalk. “Hold up - _finance_?”

Nat laughs, light and joyful. “Yeah - he asked last night.”

“I totally called it! I _told you_ , the other day at lunch - I said he was gunna -”

“Yeah, yeah - you called it.”

“Actually I lied, it wasn’t so much a prediction as a sure thing - Sam came to talk to me about it last week. He said he wanted to be _respectful_ and everything, wanted to make sure I wouldn’t be taken by surprise. Just to be clear, he wasn’t like, asking me for permission or anything - we both know you aren’t a commodity we are trading,” Bucky insists, and Nat’s responding snort tells him that she understands him. “He just wanted to be considerate of my feelings. It was really sweet, actually - I cried. Totally embarrassing for both of us. He made me promise not to tell you. Oops.”

Nat snorts again. “He’s going to have to learn that you are the worst secret keeper in the world -”

“Only with you.” Bucky pauses. “I just forget sometimes, that you and I don’t share the same brain.”

“I know what you mean.”

There’s silence between them for a minute, comfortable and stretching.

“Congratulations, Natasha.”

“Thank you, James,” Bucky can hear the smile in her voice. “Congratulations to you too. You two are really good together.”

Bucky’s heart gives a little leap at the reminder. “Yeah - yeah, we are.”

After hanging up, Bucky runs over every detail of the previous night. He can barely believe that a few weeks ago he was just planning on pining quietly for Steve forever.

And now. Now that he knows what the long line of Steve's right collar bone feels under his hands, under his mouth. Now that he knows everywhere Steve has freckles, everywhere Steve blushes, everywhere Steve gets goosebumps in response to the slide of hands or tongue. Now that he knows how Steve sounds when Bucky uses his fingers to -  

Knowing all of that has changed - absolutely nothing, actually. Sex - even absolutely fantastic sex with the love of your life - is still just sex.

It isn’t the _sex_ that has Bucky feeling like the world has tilted on it’s axis - it was everything _else_. It was the look on Steve’s face right before he’d first kissed him. It was waking up with Steve in his arms, the joy and rightness that had swept through him when Steve’s face was the first thing he’d seen. It was the moment in the middle of undressing each other, Steve tugging Bucky’s shirt off a little too roughly, the collar getting caught on Bucky’s nose and making him squeak in startled pain, which had made Steve giggle, then kiss the tip of Bucky’s nose, then giggle again, this time into Bucky’s mouth.

It was Bucky thinking in that moment that nothing, absolutely nothing could taste better than a laugh you love - which is probably the sappiest and most embarrassing thought Bucky has ever had in his entire embarrassing life, but he doesn’t even care.

He doesn’t care because he knows Steve feels the same way. He’d seen it in Steve’s eyes, felt it in his touch, tasted it in that laugh. Bucky _knows_. The knowledge of it is a bright balloon of happiness in his chest, squeaking against his ribcage and threatening to pop.

It feels big, and impossible, and wonderful - it feels like _more_.

He arrives at Tony’s office brimming over with excitement, beaming so wide that he thinks he unnerves the receptionist, a little bit.

He’s still too happy to care.

He’s finally making things happen with Steve _and_ he might be getting his left arm back? This might be the best day of Bucky’s life.

\---

Steve’s been working at the same job site for a week and a half, so Bucky knows where to find him. When he gets there he finds Steve up on the scissor lift, applying touches of red paint to the cap of the two-story high bottle that makes up the advertisement.

Bucky waves up at him, grinning when Steve waves back. After a few minutes Steve fiddles with the control panel and the lift starts to descend, it’s loud, metallic whirring filling the air. Bucky waits at the base of the lift, watching Steve slowly approach the ground - he sort of feels like he’s in the balcony scene from _Romeo and Juliet_ , except the closer Steve gets the better Bucky can make out the hard, sad-looking frown he’s wearing. Bucky knows that Romeo and Juliet aren't exactly the poster couple for healthy romance, but he thinks that they probably at least looked happy to see each other, at least.

Feeling suddenly unsure and oddly nervous, Bucky hands Steve the burrito he’d bought for him as soon as his feet hit the pavement. "Hey – I brought you some lunch."  

"Oh." Steve looks down at the paper bag like he's never seen one before. "Ah, thanks, Bucky."  

"So.” Bucky starts, not really knowing where to go from there now that Steve is in front of him. “You wanna maybe take a walk?"

“Ah, sure.”

They head down the block to the tiny park behind the fire station, finding a park bench to share. They sit quietly for a few minutes, Steve picking in a lackluster way at his burrito.

Steve has a few flecks of red paint dotted across his left eyebrow - they remind Bucky uncomfortably of blood and he wants to reach over and wipe them away, but the air between them is filled with strange tension, and he isn’t sure if he’d be allowed to touch.

It’s more than slightly awkward, and Bucky is searching for an appropriate segue when Steve beats him to the punch.

“So last night was ah, fun,” Steve says, eyes fixed on the building across the street.

Bucky wishes Steve was looking at him, but he figures that was as good of a window as he could ask for.

“Yeah,” he agrees, trying not to rush right into it.

He knows he needs to be casual, considering the two of them moving towards a romantic relationship is a big step, one that he shouldn’t risk putting too much pressure on - but not too casual, considering he wants to make it clear just how serious the prospect is to him.

“Yeah - last night was great,” Bucky agrees again. “Really, really great. Especially the beginning, and the middle, and the end.” He pauses to clear his throat. “Anyway - I’m head over heels in love with you, and I think it would be really great if we could repeat last night every night, you know, henceforth. And so on. Forever.”

So much for casual.

Of all the reactions to this Bucky might have anticipated, Steve snorting and rolling his eyes wasn’t high on the list.

“Don’t joke, Buck.”

“What? I’m not joking.”

"You’re _always_ joking. Quit the bullshit, alright. And you can also shut it if you're just saying what you think I want to hear – we're good. It was just sex."

Bucky feels that like a jab to the solar plexus. “I’m not - is that how you feel? That’s not how _I_ feel.”

“I’m just saying - you don’t need to humor me,” Steve mutters, and Bucky can tell properly now that he’s - angry, for whatever reason.

“What makes you think I’m joking, right now? Does it sound like I’m joking?” Bucky asks, starting to feel a little frustrated himself. “Steve - I’m trying to tell you that -”

“Buck, be serious with me -”

“I am being serious!”

“You’re never serious!” Steve shouts, rounding on him. “You barely take yourself seriously, Bucky! It’s always a joke, with you - even with the big stuff - your job, or your divorce, or your arm - why wouldn’t I believe you are joking about this to?” Steve spits, gesturing between them.

Bucky feels his face heat, blushing in outrage. “What the _fuck_ \- how dare you throw that in my face! I’m allowed to deal with my shit in whatever way I choose to, Steve! God, I think I remember having this argument before - about you pushing your thickheaded opinions off on me. I get to decide how I feel, Steve!”

Bucky stands abruptly and Steve follows, glaring up into Bucky’s face.

"What was I supposed to expect, Buck! It’s not exactly like I’ve gotten to see any evidence of you handling a serious romantic relationship in the time we’ve known each other -"

"And what was Nat, a lark? Was I just pretending for my entire marriage?"

Steve looks slightly abashed at this. "No, no I don't doubt that you and Nat were the real thing. But..."

"Just fuckin' say it."

Steve sets his jaw, looking away. "But you and Nat didn't last."

Bucky feels all the blood drain out of his face. "We lasted exactly as long as we were meant to - _you’re_ the one who said that, Steve. So we weren't forever – oh fucking well. It's not really your place to comment on the quality of mine and Nat's relationship."

"No it isn't – but it sure hell is my place to comment on the nature of _our_ relationship,” Steve asserts, the hostility back in his voice. “And I'm entitled to my concerns -"

"So, what – I can't promise you forever, so you'd rather not try at all? No one can promise forever, Steve! It's unrealistic to expect -"

The blush on Steve’s own cheeks darkens a few shades. "Oh so now I'm unreasonable! Sorry if I don't want to wake up in two weeks to you having gotten your fill of whatever this is and then moving on!"

Bucky cannot believe Steve is doing this - does he really not know Bucky, after all this time? Does he not know that Bucky wouldn’t ever have let anything happen between them if he _knew_ they wanted different things? "You're doing it again – deciding for me how I really feel. Well tough shit, doll – I know how I feel, and I fucking love you. So how about you just -"

"How about I just what?" Steve snaps.  

"How about you just let me!"

Steve’s eyes are hard, unyielding. “I think we have different expectations for what this might mean, Buck. You might think you want this right now, but I can’t bet on someone who might just up and - I get too invested, Buck. The temporary thing doesn’t really work for me. I shouldn’t have...” he trails off.

And it hits Bucky then that it's not that Steve doesn't know him, it's that Steve doesn't _trust_ him. All these years later and Steve still thinks Bucky is as frivolous and fickle as he did when they first met.

It’s the worst type of rejection, because it speaks to the all fears that Bucky has about himself – that he wasn't made to love someone in that deep and abiding way, that that part of him is broken, or missing altogether.

But fuck that - Bucky loves Steve. He knows he does - even when he's being a stubborn, judgmental shit. And Bucky can’t see that changing - not for anything.

And Bucky knows Steve loves him too. He’d felt it when he woke up this morning, wore the knowledge of it on him all day like a warm sweater. He _knows_.

Bucky’s mouth tastes like ash. "Let's just be clear, right now. Stop putting words in my mouth, Steve. Just listen. I'm in, I'm all in – you and me. That's the way I see this. You and me. I'm putting it all on the line – if I could put forever on the line I would, but we both know that's not within my control. I'm finite, and I'm human, and I can be a pretty huge fuckup sometimes – but I'm also yours, if you'll have me. Don't you want to at least _try_ ? Don’t you love _me_?”

Steve looks away again. Bucky’s heart clenches so hard he’s afraid it might stop. “How I feel about you,” Steve starts, then pauses to clear his throat. “It doesn’t matter how I feel, Buck.”

“It matters to me,” Bucky manages, feeling strangled by the words.

“It just - it wouldn’t work,” Steve says, the fight gone out of his voice. He sounds _resigned_.

Bucky’s heart breaks clean in two.

“You’re a coward,” Bucky tells him.

“Maybe so,” Steve says, looking down at his feet. Then he turns around, and he walks away.

It occurs to Bucky that this is the second time he has had to watch Steve walk away from him with a sense of finality looming over them. He dispels the thought - Bucky isn’t about to give up that easily, at least not on the entirety of his and Steve’s relationship. He wonders, defeated, if Steve _is_.

He forgets entirely about the arm until he arrives back home and starts to take the pins out of his sleeve for the night. It occurs to him that he hadn’t gotten the chance to mention any of that to Steve. No matter, he isn’t about to contact Steve about it now.

Steve’s going to have to be the one to contact him, first; Bucky has to know that Steve is going to try to meet him half-way.

Bucky had gone out on a limb, and Steve had torn it clean off. The hurt of it is powerful, palpable throbbing, keeping time with his heart.

Bucky isn’t sure if it’s the sort of pain he can recover from, this time.  

\---

Bucky gets the call from Tony the next day; he’s been approved for the trial. They’ve scheduled the surgery for three weeks from Saturday, if he’s still interested.

Bucky agrees.

\---

The last three weeks have been absolute fucking torture. Every day that Steve doesn’t talk to Bucky feels like a goddamn year - and a wasted one at that.

Steve can’t believe he’d done what he’d done, had said what he’d said. 

He'd just been so prepared to shelve his own feelings, to retreat to the security of their friendship and the comfortable, expected pain of his unrequited hopes - but then Bucky had said 'I love you' and blown his chest wide open.

Unfortunately the emotion that had rushed out was sheer panic. He'd gotten a flash of Bucky, the first day they'd met, winking at him over the table at the diner, of the way he'd said 'That's a little quixotic, don't you think' and rolled his eyes. Then a flash of Brock - of Brock walking away, of the way he hadn't looked back. And it had been so easy in the moment to take that panic and lash out, rather than take Bucky at his word and open up right back to him. It had been easier to convince himself that Bucky was joking - even though Steve knows Bucky better than that, that as playful as he is Bucky would never toy with Steve's emotions - or that the two of them were once again talking at cross-purposes. After all, twelve years ago - 

Except this _isn't_ twelve years ago, this is now. Steve _knows_ Bucky. Bucky wouldn't have said all that - and Steve's heart clenches at the memory of 'I'm yours' - if he hadn't truly meant it. Especially if - 

The entire exchange in the park haunts him, but especially the part where he had failed to say it back, had failed to tell Bucky that he loves him too. Because Bucky deserves to know it, to have heard it out loud. Bucky deserves that, and more - Bucky deserves fucking _everything_ , and all Steve had given him was doubt and excuses. 

Steve knows he’s a coward. He’s always known it. The fear and the hurt are just too much for him; he isn’t like Bucky, able to roll with the punches and pull everybody else up with him. Steve doesn’t have Bucky’s strength. He knows he’s weak, but he also can’t believe he’d let his need to protect himself get in the way of the best thing that had ever happened to him. Worse, he can’t believe he’d turned his shield into a weapon - and had used it against the person he loves best in the world.

Steve's been too ashamed to contact Bucky since, even though it's killing him. He's not sure he will ever be able to forgive himself; the best he can hope for is that Bucky will forgive him, eventually.

Whether Bucky will still love him is another story altogether. 

\---

Steve is up on a ladder, morosely painting hearts and cupids on the interior window of a boutique downtown, when his phone buzzes in his pocket. He slides down and pulls it out to find two text alerts from Natasha.

 

**Today 3:33 PM**

Nat: **Look I know you guys are still playing stubborn idiot chicken or whatever**

Nat: **but I think it's pretty shitty that you didn't come to the hospital**

 

The black wave of panic that wells up in Steve's chest at the word 'hospital' is so akin to an asthma attack that he starts frantically feeling around in his pocket in search of his inhaler before abandoning the search in favor of texting a response.  

 

Me: WTF  

Me: what hospital??? What happened??  

 

Steve spends an agonizing three seconds waiting for her reply before remembering what cell phones were initially made to do and scrambles to call. Nat picks up on the second ring.  

"Hello?"

"Nat! Oh my god - What the fuck happened? Is he okay? Where is he?" Steve hears himself shout, tone perilously close to screechy.  

"Steve, calm down – it's not an emergency. He's fine – he's in surgery at New York-Presbyterian."  

"What in the fuck for? What happened?"

"He really didn't tell you?"

"Does it SOUND like he fucking told me? Jesus, Nat, tell me what in the fuck is going on!"

"Steve – he's alright. He's getting a prosthesis fitted – one of Tony's prototypes for the research trial. The initial hardware does involve some pretty invasive procedures – bone grafts or something – but Tony's got the best of the best on it and so far it's all going according to plan. He'll be here in recovery for up to a week, and rehab will take a little while, but he's going to be fine. Better than fine, probably – Tony showed me the arm, it's impressive."

Steve let's out a sigh of relief that has more than one choked note in it. Nat catches at least one.  

"Steve. He's going to be fine."

Steve pinches the bridge of his nose and breathes deep, contemplating bending over and putting his head between his knees. "Why," he clears his throat in an attempt to cull its wavering. "Why didn't he tell me?"

He hears Nat's heavy sigh. "I don't fucking know, Steve.”

“I mean this is, this is bigger than - whatever it is that’s happening between us.”  
“I don’t know that it is, Steve - at least, I don’t think that’s how James feels.”

“What, like some little post-hookup friendship-weirdness is more important than him going through surgery?” Steve questions, heart in his throat.

“We both know that’s not what this is about, Steve.”

“I - I,” he tries, struggling for the words. He leans his forehead against the cold class of the window, eyes shut tight.

“Just get down here, okay?”

“Of course - of course I’m coming,” he tells her, already moving for the door.

“Good. He’s room 1A in the research wing.”

“Okay - I’ll see you there.”

\---

An hour later Steve is standing outside Bucky’s room, looking in at him through the weird picture-window all hospital rooms seem to have and feeling so melodramatic about the whole thing that it’s giving him a headache. He’s struggling with the simultaneous urges to go in there and fling himself on Bucky’s chest, and to run out of the building and never look back.

He’s consumed by uncertainty. Why hadn’t Bucky told him about this? Why hadn’t Bucky called him at all in the past three weeks? Why hadn’t he told Bucky he loved him? Why isn’t he walking in there and doing it right now?

“He’s pretty drugged up,” a soft voice behind his right shoulder says, startling him.

He whips around to face her. “God, Nat - you scared me. How do you move so quietly?”

“I nicked a pair of hospital socks off a cart,” she replies, shrugging.

“So - is he alright?”

“Yeah - yeah, he’s fine. Why don’t you go and see for yourself?”

“I - are you sure he wants to see me? I fucked up so bad, Nat. So bad - I don’t know if he’ll ever -”

“Of course he wants to see you,” Nat cuts him off, rolling her eyes. “He’s been asking about you every five minutes since he came-to.”

Steve’s heart lifts, in spite of himself. “I just - I was so awful, before. And he didn’t tell me - he didn’t say anything about this - he obviously didn’t expect me to be there for him.”

“Well you’re here now. So I think all expectations are null and void, at this point. You showed up - isn’t that the important part? Bucky won’t care that you’re a little late - I’m positive.”

Steve sags against the wall, tilting his head back so that he can stare up at the ceiling. “Our timing has always been off,” he mutters.

“Well, are you going to do something about that or not? Just go in there.”

Sam pokes his head around the door frame. "Oh, you're here," he says, blinking at Steve. "So you get your head out of your ass yet?" 

Steve feels his cheeks heat. 

  
"I think it's still pretty lodged in there," Nat comments. "But it might be loosening." 

  
Steve ignores them, pushing past Sam into the room. 

  
"Steve!" Bucky exclaims, spotting him, his face blooming into a grin. He's wrapped up in blankets in the hospital bed, looking small and vulnerable and _so happy_ to see him. 

Steve's heart climbs into his throat. Bucky's expression is so sweet and excited - if a little glassy-eyed - and it's all there, written on Bucky's his face, written in to the tenderness that wells in Steve's chest as he looks at him. It's all there. 

  
Steve is so _stupid_.

\---

Bucky stays in Nat and Sam’s guestroom for a few days after he gets home from the hospital; Dr. Banner had advised him to have company around while he’s still on the painkillers, and Nat had insisted on keeping a personal eye on him, in any case.

Bucky had actually finished his pill regimen yesterday, but he’s feeling sad and lonely and over-emotional, and he doesn’t want to give up the company, so he’s taking advantage of their hospitality for another night. Plus, it’s Valentine’s Day, and Bucky is still dealing with what he is now referring to as the Steve Situation.

Steve had showed up at the hospital, everyday Bucky was in recovery. According to Nat, anyway – Bucky himself doesn't remember much of anything about the first two days, on account of the pain killers. Steve had sat with him for hours, held his hand a few times, asked the doctor's questions that hadn't even occurred to Bucky, and written down the answers on a little notepad like the fucking beautiful, thoughtful little nerd he is. But he hadn't _said anything._ Not anything about his and Bucky’s relationship and it’s current or eventual status, that is.

Bucky is ready to pull his hair out, waiting for Steve to broach the subject, but he’s also not about to start the conversation himself. He figures two can play at the Stubborn-As-Shit, Emotionally Constipated Asshole game. Bucky knows he isn’t playing it very _well_ , given that he struggles with the urge to text or call Steve every five minutes, but still, he’s playing.  

He’s lounging on the couch in his boxer briefs and a sweatshirt and doing practice reps with his new arm using the special exercise ball Tony had given him, Fuzzy Lentil curled up by his head.

Sam wanders in, in the middle of buttoning up a bright red dress shirt. “Why aren’t you wearing pants?” he asks, like a total idiot.

“It’s Sunday,” Bucky replies. “I’m allowed to be casual.”

“Yeah, but it’s also a holiday. C’mon, come with us to Clint and Darcy’s party - it’s going to be fun.”

“Pass - I’m just going to stay here and remain liberated in the downstairs area. Besides, Valentine's Day is a dumb holiday.”

“Well yeah,” Nat adds, joining them in the room, wearing a baby-pink wiggle dress that should clash with her hair, but of course doesn’t. “But there’s a ninety-nine percent chance that Clint is going to be wearing a diaper as part of his cupid costume - don’t you want to see that?”

“Meh,” Bucky groans.

“Listen, man, you gotta quit moping,” Sam tells him, poking at his foot.

“You have to offer him a reward,” Nat says to Sam. “He’s incentive based, like a dog.”

“I see. You want a treat, Buck? We’ve got Oreos! C’mon boy!”

“I hate both of you,” Bucky grumbles. “No.”

“Different treat, then,” Sam muses. “Alright, one-time-only offer: if you get up right now I’ll kiss you. One big ol’ smooch, up for grabs. I’d be more humble about it, but this is an Elite Treat, man - we both know it. Going once, going twice -”

“How about you just come over here and let me squeeze your butt a little,” Bucky offers. “That way I won’t have to stand.”

“No - standing was part of the deal.”

“Not worth it then,” Bucky sighs. “No offence, Elite Treat. I’m just going to lie here and stew in my despair. Plus, Steve is the only Ass I wanna kiss, these days. And he’s still being an obstinate jerk. Fuck - why is he still being so stubborn?”

“I dunno, man.” Sam shrugs. “I’m as ill-equipped to plumb Steve Rogers’ emotional depths as the next guy. Romantic relationships require a leap of faith - and to be honest I think Steve would rather jump out of a plane before he’d jump at the chance to be emotionally vulnerable.”

“Nah - Steve _hates_ planes. That’s the whole reason we even met.” Bucky groans. “God, this is killing me. How can you be incredibly pissed at someone and still miss them? And why hasn’t he fuckin’ _called_?”

“Here’s a thought,” Nat adds, “you call _him_. Do it right now. Come on, you can tell him to meet us at the party.”

“No,” Bucky shakes his head. “I need him to call _me_ \- I need to know that he’s going to meet me halfway on this. Even if all we are going to be is friends, he has to - I have to know.”

“Alright, James, whatever. For the record, the two of you deserve each other - and by that I mean you are both _incredibly idiotic_ ,” Nat sighs.

“I know,” Bucky says. He turns over, pressing his face against the back of the couch and reaching up to pull Lentil closer to against his head. He feels her purring against his scalp. “If you see Steve tell him that, won’t you?” he mumbles, the fabric muffling his words.

He hears Sam snort. “Believe me, he already knows.”

\---

Bucky wakes up from his second depression nap of the day around ten. His usual grogginess is made even more disorienting by the lurid, hot pink post-it note stuck low on his forehead. He snatches it off and flips it over, blearily attempting to read Natasha's horrible handwriting under the light of the end table lamp.  

 

**Mopey Moperson -**

**You know I'm pretty sure a big part of rehab involves you actually USING your new arm (and no I'm not talking about jacking off) - GET OFF THE COUCH AND GO OUT! I deliberately left you no food so you'll have to leave the house for dinner. GO – get some food, rent a movie, flip some jerks off with your shiny metal finger, meet us at Clint's party, WHATEVER – just get OUT, you're starting to collect dust. Call Steve while you're at it – this is getting ridiculous.**

**-N**

 

Bucky crumples the note up and drops it behind the couch. He crosses his arms over his chest and scowls - then smiles, because ‘arms’ plural, two arms, he’s got two arms - then he frowns again.

Bucky's said it already, and he’s sticking to his guns; Steve can be the one to call _him_. Bucky said his piece already, and Steve barely listened. It’s his turn now.

His phone buzzes in his sweatshirt pocket and he hastens to pull it out, the sharp jab of hope fading instantly when he sees Scott’s name - not Steve’s - on the screen.

 

**Today 10:16 PM**

Great Scott!: **Hey sadsack**

Great Scott!: **Heard you were all depressed and shit**

Great Scott!: **I figured that means you don’t have plans tonight**

Great Scott!: **and I’d like to take advantage of that and ask you to come over and help me put up these new shelves in Cassie’s room**

Me: sure

Great Scott!: **God even your text voice sounds depressed**

Great Scott!: **Get over here then**

 

"You look like shit, man," Scott says when he opens the door.

"You would know, Toilet Boy," Bucky greets him, pushing past him into the living room and heading down the hall for Cassie’s bedroom. It’s empty; Cassie must be with her mom for the night.

"That is the least creative nickname yet, give it a fuckin' rest,” Scott says, following him. “And for the last time, I didn't mean to lick – whatever. What I mean is you look like you could use a blowjob, a back rub, and a nice, relaxing five-year coma. In that order."  

"You offering to start me off?"

"Sure – we could skip right to the end, if you want – if I hit you with this wrench hard enough it might put you out. For a few hours, at least."

"Heteros are absolutely no fun." Bucky sighs. "And don't fucking tempt me. Hand me that bolt, Urinal Licker."  

"You keep it up with that and I'm going to tell the hot dog bun story the next time Steve's around."

Bucky feels his shoulders go stiff, his metal arm whirring. He adjusts his grip on the shelf and wills himself to relax. "Let's, ah, not talk about Steve tonight, okay?"

"Uh oh, trouble in paradise?"

"Whatever Steve and I have between us, it's not much right now – least of all paradise." Bucky realizes he's tightening the bracket too hard and lets go, dropping the wrench back into the toolbox with a satisfying crash.  

"I dunno, man, you guys always look like you're having the time of your lives together, even when you're arguing about the same old shit for the millionth time and driving the rest of us insane. Seems to me like a pretty ideal setup." He shrugs, using a level to pencil little marks on the wall where the next shelf is going to go. "But maybe don't listen to me - I'm just a depressed, divorced dad whose most intimate relationship is with a pint of Baskin-Robbins."

"Depressed Divorced Dad – that's even worse than Toilet Boy."

"Yeah, I'm definitely the lamest superhero in the set."

"I dunno, 'Fantastically Unlucky, Perpetually Confused Metal-Arm Guy' ain't a real headliner either. Fuck, why did you mention ice cream? Now I’m jonesing - you got any?”

“No I just wiped the last of it out earlier tonight. The place around the corner should still be open, though - I saw the sign earlier that they weren’t closing for the holiday.”

“Alright - I’ll run over and get some.”

“Get me some chips too.”

\---

Bucky walks to the twenty-four hour grocery store a few blocks over.

Along the way he spots a few ducks floating in a half-frozen puddle in the ditch off the sidewalk, and it makes him a little sad before he realizes that they are mostly paired off, huddled up in groups of two with their heads tucked into their wings - which, of course, makes him even _sadder_ \- and what is he, jealous of a couple of ditch-ducks?

The idea that the answer to that question is an unequivocal ‘yes’ makes him feel well and truly pathetic for a moment, before he remembers that he is recently-rejected and alone on a relatively romantic holiday and is completely entitled to feel Emotional about a bunch of birds if he wants to, thank you very much.  

He trudges into the store, wincing a bit under the harsh florescent lighting and sending a commiserating little wave in the direction of the one unfortunate sales clerk at the register bank.  

He briefly entertains the idea of heading to the produce section to test the finer dexterity of his new arm for a bit, but leaves off that idea when the mental image of Sad Sales Clerk mopping up an exploded cantaloupe pops into his brain.

Plus, who is Bucky kidding - people don't go to the supermarket at near-midnight on Valentine’s to get like, avocados - Bucky is here for Rocky Road, maybe some Cherry Garcia. Some hot wings might not go amiss, either. And definitely some tater-tots, to fill in the cracks.

He rounds the corner into the next freezer aisle, only to find - Steve.

Steve, who is standing in the middle of the aisle, scowling confusedly down at the two near-identical bags of frozen tater-tots in his hands as if they’d just become sentient and then told him sort sort of off-color joke.

Bucky contemplates making a run for it, but this is, well, _Steve_.

And when it comes to Steve Rogers, Bucky can’t help himself.

"Stevie,” he hears himself say. “I know from experience that one kind of over-processed tuber tastes a lot like the next. You don't have to like, brand shop.”

Steve whips his head up and stares at Bucky blankly for a second before recognition dawns. The look that follows is so clearly full of relief and happiness and, yes, _love_ that Bucky just wants to shake Steve by the shoulders and demand that he just come the fuck on and say -

"These are for you," Steve blurts.

Bucky blinks at him. “Ah, okay - why -”

"I was gunna do the big gesture, you know,” Steve barrels on, a little wild-eyed. “I was gunna show up at the party, make some big speech - Christ, I was ready for a goddamn musical number – and I fuckin’ ran over to there, had to stop and use my inhaler twice – but by the time I showed up the idea of some sweeping, romantic gesture started to feel so like, _trite_ and pressuring. What if you didn't _want_ a big speech? What if you didn't want _me_ , anymore? What if you just wanted me to fuck off – which is not something I've ruled out yet, by the way, so you could go ahead and –”

“Steve -”

“But then I was there and _you_ might have been there, and god, I just _had_ to see you, Buck - so I went in, but you weren't there - obviously. And Nat told me you were home and I figured, I figured maybe I'd go for a medium gesture – stop and get you some food that you like, bring it by with the hope you'd let me make you something, let me take care of you for a second. Like I should have been doing this whole time. God, I'm so stupid, Buck. I really am. But I fucking love you and I just really - I just really want to make you some food. Would that be okay?"  

Bucky closes his eyes, feeling Steve’s words like a gut punch. A wonderful, exhilarating gut punch, but a breath-stealing one all the same. “Steve -” he manages, voice barely managing a whisper.

Steve takes a step closer to him. “God, it was so awful, not talking to you,” he says, his own voice gone low, quiet. “I missed you every day, Buck. And then at the hospital you were all vulnerable and in pain and I didn't want you to think I was only saying it to comfort you – I mean of course I wanted to comfort you but that's not the only reason I wanted to say it, the only reason I _want_ to say it – I want to say it for all the reasons, every last one.”

Steve takes another step; Bucky can feel the warmth of his body in front of him, even though they aren’t touching, even through his clothes.

“Anyway,” Steve continues, calmer, but even quieter. “I love you. And I think we should be in love - you know, together. Like at the same time. And in the same place. With each other. Starting ah, now.”

Bucky huffs a laugh around the lump in his throat and reopens his eyes. “Yeah, I get the gist. Wow, you are so bad at this.”

Steve shrugs. “I know.”

“Except for the part where you are amazing at this - and now I’m crying. How the fuck did that get me crying? The most inept ‘I love you’ speech of all time and I go instantly weepy. What the fuck.”

“We’re obviously made for each other,” Steve says, reaching up to wipe the tear tracks from Bucky’s face. He swipes his thumb underneath Bucky’s nose too, and it’s such a caring and gross gesture that Bucky almost starts blubbering all over again.

“That really sucked, Steve,” he says, voice tight.

“What the speech? Yeah, I know I -”

“No, the part _before_ the fuckin’ speech - you pushing me away like that, and making it seem like it was somehow my fault.”  
Steve looks pained. “I’m so sorry, Buck. I was scared, and I let that make me an asshole.”

“I thought you didn't _trust_ me – to be serious when it counted, or to care about you that way - or to be capable of caring about _anyone_ in that way. Which like, _ouch_ -”

“It’s not that,” Steve interrupts, vehement. “It's not that I didn't trust you – I just didn’t, I just didn't _believe_ you.”

“Well I don’t know how to make you believe me - that’s sort of the part where you have to meet me halfway. I love you, Steve - I don’t know how to say it any better than that.”

“God, Buck,” Steve whispers, his own eyes going watery. “That’s plenty - Jesus, that’s more than enough.”

“I love you,” he says again. “And for what it’s worth,” he adds, feeling the truth of it all the way down in his bones, “I don’t think I can stop.”

Steve smiles up at him, wet and blinding, and curls his fists into the front of Bucky’s coat, tugging him down.

Bucky’s still holding a pint of ice cream in either hand. He wants to drop them so that he can touch Steve instead, but he doesn’t want to be too dramatic about it. On second thought -

The pints hit the floor with an unpromising ‘splat.’ Bucky spares a momentary, guilty thought for Sad Sales Clerk, but then his arms are around Steve’s back, pulling him close, and Steve is kissing him.

After a few minutes they pause for breath, foreheads pressed together.

“Dude - this is little cringe-worthy,” Bucky mumbles.

“What is?” Steve asks, sounding unconcerned and gratifyingly dazed.

“It’s just so cliche - us getting together on a national holiday - the big, public scene. I’m waiting for the Louis Armstrong song to start playing.”

They both pause to listen for a second; the song playing tinnily over the supermarket’s loudspeakers is Madonna’s ‘Vogue.’

Steve snorts. “Fitting.” Then he waves a hand at the empty aisle around them, still not pulling his forehead from Bucky’s. “And there’s no one here, Buck.”

“Still.”

“If it makes you feel better we could go to mine - have a go at being stereotypical and sappy in private,” Steve says, leaning in to smile against Bucky’s mouth.

“That is the best plan I’ve ever heard,” Bucky tells him, meaning it.

“I am the man with the plan,” Steve chuckles, and there it is again - the taste of that laugh.

The balloon in Bucky’s chest takes off, floating - and this time he knows, it’s never coming down.

\---

**An hour later…**

“Oh my god.”

“What?”

“Oh my GOD.”

“What? Oh, Christ - don’t read into this -”

“What in the fuck? I said - the first night we met, _I said_ . I just _knew_ this about you -”

“Jesus, Buck, it’s not -”

“You fuckin’ _kept them_ -”

“Well I was holding them for you! It’s not like I was goin’ to throw them out -”

“And now you’re wearing them!”

“I - I washed them first! They were just sitting there - and this morning ran out of my own, so I just -”

“You complete and total _perv_. This is the best thing that has ever happened to me.”

“What about the part an hour ago where I said I loved you?”

“What about the part right now where I found out you stole my fucking underwear and have been _wearing them around_ -”

“I haven’t been - it’s just been today.”

“You’ve been wearing them this _entire time_ \- on your _tiny little bum_ -”

“Hey, it’s not my fault you get like, extra smalls. I have no idea how you fit that ass and that junk in these things, Buck -”

“Turn around, this is too good.”

“Seeing as they actually fit _me_. You really should start wearing the right size, Bucky. It’s not healthy for you to be all squished -”

“Alright, alright - and if it makes you feel better you can administer my testicular cancer checks yourself for the next fifty years, as regular as you’d like.”

“Fifty years, huh?”

“Maybe even _longer_.”

“I’d be honored to poke you in the balls for the next half a century, Buck. Now can I finish taking these off? I thought we were about to -”

“Oh we still are - but hold on a sec, I want to -”

“No. Absolutely not. _No_ pictures -”

“Too late.”

“Bucky!”

“What! Do you really not want me to have a picture of -”

“No it’s just - these aren’t the most flattering color.”

“Oh. Oh my god, Steve, tell me you still have the lacy red ones - I have been dreaming about those for literal _years_ -”

“Wow, way to just put all the cards on the table, Buck - years? So embarrassing.”

“An hour ago you wiped the snot off my face and then still kissed me afterward.”

“Yeah, well, I guess I’m embarrassing too. Put your fucking phone down and get over here.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

“For fuck’s sake. I’m going to start kissing you now and it isn’t even going to be sexy, it’s just going to be to get you to shut up -”

“Like I care. Now, seriously, where are the red ones.”

“Oh my god - just be quiet for one goddamn minute so I can -”

…

“Better.”

\---

**A few hours after that…**

They lay facing each other, sharing a pillow.  

"So are we, like, dating now?"

"Fuckin’ Christ, Buck – after all that? Yes, we're dating."  

"I'm just fuckin' with ya. Of course we're dating – we've basically been dating for months. And now that I've got you, I'm not about to give you up."  

Steve reaches over to tuck an errant lock of hair behind Bucky's ear. "You know that creepy, territorial sort of machismo isn't quite as romantic as you think."

"I'm just trying to show you how I'm feeling. And just so you know, Stevie – I'm never going to let you down. Also never going to mess around, or desert -"

"Oh my god, are you trying to Rick Roll me right now?"

Bucky snorts, tucking his face into the pillow, shoulders quivering.

Steve pinches Bucky's nipple, causing him to give a little yelp that subsides straight back into giggling. Steve sighs. "A few hours after 'I don't think I can stop' and you’re pulling lame pranks in bed - honeymoon period my ass."

"Hey, you've known me twelve years – you know what you're getting into."

Steve puts his hands on Bucky's face, presses a thumb into the dimple on his chin. "Yeah. Yeah I do."

A few sweaty minutes later Steve rolls slightly away and breaks the kiss. "Oh god, it's so late – we've gotta stop having sex and get to sleep."

"Now that is the _worst_ plan I've ever heard," Bucky groans, pulling Steve back in. "Plus, it's technically already morning – we might as well stay _up_." Bucky wriggles his hips against Steve's.  

Steve laughs and squirms against him. "That's true – seize the day, as it were." He reaches down to squeeze Bucky's ass.  

Bucky laughs into his mouth. "You know what they say, the early bird gets the _worm_." He wiggles his hips again.  

Steve pulls away again and makes a face. "Oh, gross. Sex canceled, maybe indefinitely. Ew."

"You love it," Bucky says, looking up at Steve with a smile so large it's making the corners of his eyes crinkle up, a smile so large it's making Steve's heart feel like it's about to burst into bloom.   

Steve lies back down on him, tucks his face into Bucky's neck with a sigh. "Of all the things I love about you, I'm not so sure how high your penchant for terrible jokes ranks."

"Oh my god, you _love_ me," Bucky whispers. Steve feels the vibration of the words against his forehead, feels the sudden awe in them.

Steve pats his cheek clumsily, exhausted. "Yes, we've established that several times tonight," he yawns.  

"It still hasn't really sunk in."

"You said you knew."

"I do know – but knowing it and hearing you say it are two very different things," Bucky says, honest.

"Oh." Steve tilts his head back so he can look at him. "Well, I love you, Buck. I love you, I love you, I love you."

Bucky closes his eyes. "Fuck, that's good." He wraps both arms around Steve's bare back, tight and close.

"Oof!"

"Oh sorry, did I squeeze too hard? I'm still trying to figure out the finesse with this thing." Bucky hastens to pull his prosthetic away.  

"No, no – it was just a little, um, cold," Steve explains, fishing around in the sheets to find Bucky's metal hand and relocate it to the small of his back.  

"Oh! Sorry -"

"Don't be. I actually kind of like it," Steve admits. He reaches back again to slide Bucky's hand further down.

Bucky chuckles, jostling Steve slightly. "Oh yeah? You think my intensely cool robo-arm is sexy?"

"I really do, apparently."

"Good. You know Tony and I were trying to brainstorm a vibrating function - for, ah, _intimate moments_ \- but Bruce shot us down. Something about interference with the neural-something-something."

Steve pulls back yet again and stares at him. "You talked to a world-renown neurosurgeon about giving your state-of-the-art prosthetic Inspector Gadjet-esque sex-toy capabilities?"

"Well what if he had said yes? I couldn't risk the opportunity! Tony thought it was a good idea."

Steve snorts. "He would - I'm surprised you didn’t end up with a detachable thumb that can be used as a butt plug."

"What an inspired idea – you really are the perverted genius of my dreams." He drops a kiss to the top of Steve's head.  

"Stop sweet talking – I told you, we've gotta stop necking and get some sleep."

"Whatever you say, baby."  

"Mhmmm, call me that again."  

"Baby, baby, baby."

Steve sighs, feels the petals unfurling in time with his pulse.

They fall asleep entangled, the metal plates of Bucky's arm blood-warm and solid at every point it rests against Steve's skin.

\---

**One year later.**

“I’m telling you, man,” Bucky insists. “He’s a professional _storm chaser_ \- told me so last week when he came into the lab to visit Jane on her lunch break. I’ve known the guy almost two years and he just casually drops it into conversation. All ‘Hey look at this video of me driving a truck into a tornado.’ Totally insane.”

Sam’s eyes are wide, his chin tucked down into his scarf as they walk. “Wow. I suppose that explains the massive lightning-bolt tattoo,” he says.  

Bucky nods. “I know, right? He is so fuckin’ cool.”

“I mean what were we expecting, really, with a name like ‘Thor,’” Sam points out. “Not like the dude was going to turn out to be a sales clerk at Lush.”

“That reminds me - I’m headed there tomorrow, need me to pick you up anything?”

“Oh hell yes - a pot of that Argan oil body conditioner, if you don’t mind.”

“And a bath bomb?”

“Well _yeah_. Something soothing, please - I like grounding scents.”

“Got it.”

Bucky’s heart skips a beat when he spots Steve, standing with Nat on the stoop to his and Bucky’s building.  

“Oh look,” Bucky hears Steve say to Nat when he notices the two of them approaching. “It’s the love of my life - and hey, he’s brought my husband with him.”

Nat laughs, standing up on tiptoe to kiss Sam on the cheek as he reaches her side.

“Don’t you dare,” Bucky addresses his spouse, “pretend you don’t love me. I won’t have it.” He snags the paper coffee cup out of Steve’s hand and takes a swig. It’s cloyingly sweet and somehow - floral? “Christ, what is that - lavender? Gross.”

Steve plucks the cup out of Bucky’s grip. “Good thing it isn’t _your_ latte, then. And what, are you just demanding that I love you now? That’s how you’re playing this?”

“I ain’t playin’ at nothing,” Bucky tells him, grabbing Steve’s waist in both hands. “And yes, absolutely. It’s imperative to my survival, after all.”

“Oh, well, I suppose if you’re going to _die_.” Steve wraps an arm around Bucky’s neck, nuzzling him a little, the latte dangling half-forgotten in his other hand. “I can’t have you just keeling over in front of our neighborhood bodega - they might not let me back in, and then I wouldn’t ever get to pet the mac-and-cheese-shelf cat again.”

Bucky kisses him on the tip of the nose, then again on the arch of his left eyebrow. “Glad to hear that the priority in the event of my death is that it occur far enough away from your favorite cat-petting spot.”

“Well, yeah - I mean if you’re going to die anywhere, do it in front of the bodega two blocks over - the one that doesn’t even _have_ a cat.”

“I’ll keep that under advisement for when the time comes.”

“You do that.”

“Oy, weirdos” Sam shouts from up the sidewalk. “Your courtship rituals are always extremely entertaining, but can you two please finish this one up  - we have dinner reservations.”

“I don’t think calling ahead to make sure they haven’t run out of pork buns counts as making reservations,” Bucky calls back.

“Pipe down, Barnes.”

Bucky and Steve fall into line behind Sam and Nat as they walk, Bucky’s metal arm looped comfortably over Steve’s shoulders.

“So I got a call from Pete today,” Bucky says to him. “He wants us to redo the interview, says he decided it was ‘too thoroughly unprofessional.’”

“Censorship and libel.”

“That’s what I said.”

“It is kind of sweet though,” Steve professes. “Really shows the optimism of youth - that he thinks there’s even a _slight_ possibility of it going better the second time.”

“I said that too. Hey, um, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

“If it’s about you having a ginormous crush on me, I sort of figured.”

“ _Ha ha_ . That’s not it - except actually it kind of is,” Bucky relents. “The interview got me thinking of it. It’s sort of embarrassing, really, but I figure all that ‘till death do us part’ stuff encourages full disclosure - I just  want you to know that I _did_ recognize you, that second time, at the bus station.”

“I know that already, you said -”

“No, I mean I recognized you _right away_ . Like, when you and Brock were kissing behind the pillar - I recognized you by the _back of your head_.”

Steve blinks up at him. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“This isn’t some set up for a joke about how I have funny shaped ears or somethin’, is it?”

“No, no - I don’t really know why, I just took one look at you and the whole thing slotted into place. And then I couldn’t help myself from just bounding straight over to talk to you - except by the time I reached you I had recognized Brock and, you know, had a second to realize how ridiculous my irrational excitement at seeing you again was. So I, uh, had to downplay it a bit.”

Steve snorts. “By just pretending you didn’t remember me at all? That _is_ embarrassing.”

“Fuck off. You’re supposed to think it’s cute - you’re supposed to like, swoon. It’s romantic.”

“I’ve said this before, Buck - you’ve got a weird idea of what constitutes romance.”

“You’re the one who proposed over a bowl of _cereal_ ,” Bucky counters.

“You’re totally underselling it - I made you breakfast in bed. That’s a classic move.”

“It was _Captain Crunch_.”

“Well duh, that’s your favorite. Your milk spit-take response was a little unfortunate though - I hadn’t planned for that.”

“Well I hadn’t really planned on ‘Hey Buck you wanna get married’ at seven-thirty in the morning, pre-coffee and post-mouthful of Berry Berry Crunch.”

Steve shrugs, smiling. “Our timing has never been perfect.”

Bucky tugs Steve in closer to his side and presses a kiss to the side of his head. “We make it work.”

Steve reaches up to thread his fingers through Bucky’s. “We do.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 4 song recs:  
> Hand i hand - Dolce  
> Waiting - Alice Boman  
> I'll Be Your Mirror - The Velvet Underground, Nico
> 
> For your viewing pleasure, [Sam's 'cartoon bird' sheets](https://www.potterybarn.com/products/ashley-bird-print-duvet-sham/?catalogId=69&sku=5403394&bnrid=3380801&cm_ven=Google_PLA&cm_cat=Shopping&cm_pla=Feed&cm_ite=Google%20Base-5403394&kwid=productads-adid%5E202405455967-device%5Ec-plaid%5E328117581320-sku%5E5403394-adType%5EPLA&gclid=Cj0KEQjwkN3KBRCu2fWmy9LLqN4BEiQANP9-Wvhhgyq8sYrnHh9sVaNgNQimfq4uaKtZXE30xGpLHsYaAsEx8P8HAQ%20%20%0A)  
> Fun Fact: Carl Erskine was a player for the Brooklyn Dodgers during their last season in the borough in 1955
> 
> Also if anyone is wondering how Bucky instantly recognized his underwear it's because they look like [this](https://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Chewie-Stack-Boxer/dp/B01EXOVRE6/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1503528748&sr=8-10&keywords=star+wars+boxer+briefs)


	6. End Credits

**Page 2**

**Happily** **Ever After and Chill: Tales of Modern Love**

An Interview Series 

Interviews conducted and transcribed by Peter Parker 

Interview 13 – S. and B. 

Audio Transcription from 3/8/2017

(Interviewer's contributions presented in  **bold** )

**S:**  So yeah, the first time we met we hated each other, and then - 

 **B:**  Steve we just covered this – we didn't hate each other. I was crushin' on you right from the start and you went and stomped all over my high hopes. Made fun of my hair too -

 **S:** You were at a weird stage in the growing-out process – 'Goblet of Fire' level bad hair. And your hopes were not that high, you were just being an obnoxious flirt for the hell of it. 

 **B:**  My hopes were at least eight inches high, babydoll. Well, maybe nine, I'm definitely a grower, not a show– Ouch! Jesus, Stevie, you've got the sharpest elbows in the –

 **S:** The second time we met he didn't even remember me.

 **B:** I did too – I was just still broken up over the previous snubbing, thought I'd give you a taste of the cold shoulder for a change.

 **S:**  The six-year-previous snubbing?

 **B:** Yes, the six-year-previous snubbing. Also the insult to my hair.

[muffled snort]

 **S:** My sincerest apologies to your hair, Buck. 

 **B:**  Apology conditionally accepted – the conditions being me, you, and a pack of those fruit flavored con–

 **S:**  The third time we met we became friends. As hard as that still is to believe.

 **B:** You say that like you weren't the one to propose.

 **S:** Stop interrupting, I'm trying to tell the story. Anyway, we were friends – and then more than friends.

 **B:** By 'more than friends' he means true love. Soulmates. Fireworks. Borderline-excessive amounts of sex.

 **S:**  It's all very poetic.

 **B:**  Isn't it though?

 **S:**  Anyway, we've been married for a year now.

 **B:** Best year of my life.

 **S:**  Mine too.

**Yuck.**

**B:**  Thank you, Pete. We are pretty cute. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End Credits song recs:   
> Pretty Please - Leon Triplett   
> The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack - Liars 
> 
>  
> 
> AUGHGHGHGHGHGHG It's done! Not gunna lie, friends, this one almost killed me. The last few months have been a whirlwind for me personally and generally (seriously wtf 2017 - why you gotta do us like this?) and I almost abandoned this project, many, many times. I'm glad I didn't and I hope that it was a fun read for you guys! 
> 
> A MILLION THANKS to my amazing, talented, lovely artist [Lucidnancyboy](https://lucidnancyboy.tumblr.com) whose support and humor and emailed cat pics I couldn't have done without. Also they made the most beautiful piece of art for the fic, but whatever. [JK GO LOOK AT IT RIGHT NOW, YOU LUCKY DUCKS!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11843232) It's stupendous. And also my computer background. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!!!!!!   
> <3


End file.
